


Sketch of Distrust

by Aenigmatic



Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 37,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenigmatic/pseuds/Aenigmatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sins of the past generation come to light when Evelyn Carnahan returns to Egypt a few years after The Mummy.</p><p>A re-post of an old story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another enthusiastic, if a bit mad, start to a new story, a big change from 'To Manifest Me Rightly' - no confusing parallel timelines, and set in an Alternate Universe, about 2 years after The Mummy. 
> 
> It's an Ardeth/Evy story this time, which I think not many people write about (I already hear the scream of protest from loyal Rick/Evy fans) and has quite a bit to do with the British Occupation of Egypt that started in 1882 and lasted all the way till 1952.

Ich bin ja kein Wissender im Wehe-  
so macht mich dieses große Dunkel klein;  
bist Du es aber: mach dich schwer, brich ein:  
daß deine ganze Hand an mir geschehe  
und ich an dir mit meinem ganzen Schrein.  
-Rainer Maria Rilke, "Das Studenbuch"

[I still can't see very far yet into suffering-  
so this vast darkness makes me small;  
are you the one: make yourself powerful, break in:  
so that your whole being may happen to me,  
and to you may happen, my whole cry.]

**Prologue**

_London, 1926_

The glint that Egypt had made in the setting sun, the musty smell of the museum she had worked in and the uncomfortable humps of the camels with their ungraceful snorts...these were particularly fond memories.

The glorious landscapes of Egypt had superimposed itself over _The Ride of the Valkyries_ , and truth be told, its sounds and smells surpassed the screeching of the Nordic handmaidens who were floating about on stage, horribly enlarged when they inhaled and impressively belted out stanza after stanza written for the sole purpose of exhibiting the rare coloratura range that only few women were blessed (or cursed?) with.

Evelyn Carnahan sighed. Truth be told once again, she was part envious, part bored. Her voice was never and will never be operatic, the voice that London society had unfairly chased and glorified excessively. The fashionable, pretentious society that had to stretch its neck out to breathe when it was not busy worshipping fame and money.

The 'growing' artistry and thought in the upper class circles of the London snobbish society were not anything she cared for, but the orders of her employer were to be strictly obeyed.

The mysterious riders in black, gun - and sword-wielding, they called themselves the Medjai, Ardeth Bay, Rick O'Connell, Beni and the One who shall not be named.

Not that fond memories after all. Nostalgic, painful and still fear-inducing. Imhotep's - _the One who shall not be named_ \- she corrected herself hastily, not out of fear of rousing him once more, but that she thought he deserved no name, not even the last vestige of an identity; his soul was hopefully more securely bonded in the hands of Anubis than in the wrappings of perishable linen.

 _Alles zum Teufel_ , they could all go to the dogs, she thought, sitting stiffly in the opera box, her back ramrod straight, removing her opera glasses to rub her eyes sleepily amid the annoying screams onstage. Mr Finkley had promised her the next day off, and collapsing on her bed after a long day at work was first on her list of the utmost, most important, no-delay 'to-dos'.

The round of applause caught her unawares. 

She put her hands together hurriedly, smiled and nodded approvingly, applauding the fact that the opera had finally ended instead of the stellar performance of the cast. Mr and Mrs Finkley were in no hurry to leave; their children were tucked in bed, secure, asleep, under the warmth of blankets, cold autumn night.

They had promised her a chauffeur and with immense gratitude she glided down the steps of the theatre, slipping on her heavy overcoat, her steps getting giddily faster and faster, oblivious to the admiring glances thrown her way, leaving the faint perfumed scent of damask rose in her wake.

She went past the swirl of conversations and the boom of the voices -

"Madam, as for the hiatus in the Continent -"

"The superiority of Wagner indeed!"

"Not that I find Jazz utterly distasteful, but it seems that -"

Past the plastered smiles and rakish top-hats -

"If you would allow me here -"

"Oh, I am sorry, but another appointment awaits me." The dazzling smile did them in, she was convinced.

The car awaited her, and with a prayer of thanks Evelyn Carnahan slipped into its velvety softness, consumed and pampered thoroughly by its plush coverings.

The London air was polluted but she inhaled deeply from the window nonetheless, loving the way her breath puffed out in smoke, disappearing into the blackness.

Cold nights of London.

Cold nights of Egypt.

Nights that were spent gazing into the clear Egyptian night sky, breathing the fickle air of the desert that was stifling by day and cold as an iceberg's breath at night.

Alright, she missed Egypt, but not so much as to want to return.

She wondered if Jon was already home, that rascal of rascals, her hand moving down her dress to tug at the finely sewn fabric, lightly fingering the ruby red low-waisted dress and the wide hat that she wore now, that had captured her attention all those months ago, the fashion of America that had caught on so quickly.

The white shirt and dumpy brown long skirt would always remain her perennial favourites.

It was no fun to return to an empty large house. 

The inheritance from her parents had been considerable, but to squander their money seemed almost sacrilegious, so work was what she did; the traditional job of a governess, the single, educated woman who took it upon herself to train the next generation. After all, that was what respectable ex-librarians who wrestled ancient, cursed mummies did, right? 

The house was lighted, which meant that Jon was home - a rare sight for her brother to return earlier, which meant it was also time she became a betting women on cards.

The loud slam of a bedroom door startled her.

"Evy! Will you see this! It will blow yer socks off."

"Can't it wait till morning, Jonathan? I need to sleep."

"Absolutely not. Uh-uh."

Jonathan Carnahan, the only kin she had, standing on the banister, scraps of paper in his hand.

"Patience is a virtue."


	2. Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some background taken off Arabnet:
> 
> The outbreak of WWI had brought Egypt as a Protectorate under the British Empire when the Ottoman Sultan pledged support for the Germans against the allies. During the war, the 6th son of Khedive Ismail, Fouad, had become Khedive of Egypt but his authority was to be constantly challenged by Egyptian nationalists who fed on the popular resentment of foreign domination. In September 1918 Egypt made the first moves toward the formation of a wafd, a delegation to voice its demands for independence at the Paris Peace Conference.
> 
> Sa'ad Zaghloul was the leader of the nationalist movement during and after the first war and in 1918 he formally presented the British High Commissioner with a demand for complete autonomy which was rejected out of hand. Zaghloul's eventual arrest and deportation to Malta resulted in widespread anti-British riots, forcing the British to back down.
> 
> In 1922 the British ended the protectorate and recognized Egypt's independence, while maintaining control over the essential government institutions and the Suez Canal. Fouad was proclaimed King of Egypt in March of the same year and the years that followed were characterized by a triangular power struggle between the British, the King and the nationalist Wafd party which had the support of the population.

_London, 1926_

Autumn dawns were days of splendour, only when she did not have to wake up early for work. The change of the seasons, subtle, soft, she thought, one of humanity's oldest and inexhaustible wines. Everything looked at rest, still, exhales and inhales, darkness and light.

Save for Jonathan Carnahan's resonant snoring.

The clock showed an impossible six-twenty with the squint in her eyes, the plain of gray hanging over her room, over the sky. London was waking up, the groggy giant metropolis that ironically proclaimed eternal wakefulness, the wheels of its gigantic machinery reluctantly churning as the day slowly lightened.

The shadows that cast a black sheen on an aged picture frame on the bedside table slowly disappeared, cutting away the strong contrast of light and dark shades to reveal a family, a posture-conscious man and his Middle-Eastern wife, their two babies.

Evelyn Carnahan's room had remained unchanged for years, a pristine and perfect preservation of quaint Edwardian décor even when she spent the years in Egypt, courtesy of the faithful housekeeper who had pledged undying allegiance to the Carnahan family.

She smiled wryly - Mrs Ellby acquired heart palpitations when she saw the defacement of her room - the memory was fond as she gazed at the ancient amulets that now hung irreverently on the side of the table, an obscure papyrus scroll that displayed itself proudly behind the family portrait, etchings made from the drawings at Deir El-Bahri shouted the power of Hatshepsut over the relics of Edwardian England.

Egypt is in my blood.

Her eyes fell on the portrait as it had unfailingly daily for the past years that she had returned to London - feeling a pinch of guilt for not missing her parents more.

Rohan Carnahan and his unusual wife Rahiq Mahadeva Carnahan - parents whom she had uneven knowledge of; the father and the mother who had brought Jonathan and her up until he vanished mysteriously in Egypt during the first world war, and her intensely exotic Egyptian mother who had followed him back to Egypt and had never returned.

She groaned as she left her warm bed and stretched languidly, dressing and making her way to the kitchen until the glint that came from the odd position of silver scarab beetle stopped her in her tracks.

A makeshift paperweight that was placed atop several tattered sheets of paper, letters, they looked to be, correspondences that looked too old to be bothered with.

Of course.

Jonathan Carnahan's excitement overflowed.

_Darling sleepy head,_

_Found them in a drawer, a drawer in a part of that oak table that we never knew existed. The one which made you cry at the grand age of 6 whenever you sat on it. Read immediately the moment your eyes open._

It had indeed been a long time since Jonathan was particularly thrilled, she conceded. Removing the scarab beetle paper weight, she took up the pile of letters, some hastily written, others thought out with a careful hand, admiring the bold, elegant script that she knew without a doubt belonged to her father.

She was immediately intrigued; the correspondences a key that unlocked the world of her father and his erratic behaviour when the Great War started.

Hmm.

She picked them up gingerly, flipping them through; they seemed to be grocery lists, mundane notes about household matters before her eyes settled on the fourth sheet of paper.

_1916, Cairo_

_The office of the British Commissioner of Egypt  
Sir Reginald Wingate_

_To: Mr Rohan W. Carnahan,_

_It is my greatest pleasure to inform you that the position of political analyst with our foreign office that you have been seeking after is finally available._

_A reply however, is needed as fast as our courier allows -_

"Evy!" She looked up, startled, to see Jonathan Carnahan peering over her shoulder.

"I see you've found them, look at this, look!" His hand impatiently flipped the next correspondence upwards, pointing vigorously at the 7th sheet of paper.

"A letter from Mother's egyptian family -"

"...dated around 1917..."

"Read!" She ordered smilingly.

"Hold on, Jonathan, translation, translation," she trailed off, scanning the untidy Arabic that now looked foreign to her eyes.

"I'll do it." He announced, snatching the paper from her. "A no-frills paper, no-frills writing. No waiting."

" _To Rahiq Mahadeva Carnahan,_

_Salaam,_

_"Ithn'an habash kam'muh nuwn r'yat sama'kan yatta'jih kulu'wana,_ " he announced with a flourish, holding the paper at a considerable length from his eyes, squinting.

"In English!"

" _Your uncle is critically ill, wounded in gunfire. But the point of this letter is not to say any whys and hows. You know that he is one of the most prominent members of the Umma Party, and had pushed for the development of the wafd._

_We are very loyal to the cause of Egypt; the independence of Egypt shall be accomplished. It is said that there is strength in numbers, and the wafd shall not be a delegation that has a mouth without limbs which will move according to the will of Allah for Eygpt._

_I ask for your return, now. You have lived in Egypt all your life, and a mere 7 years in England when you went west with your husband and your children..._ "

He broke off, puzzled.

"Why is it I can't remember such details?"

"Apart from the fact that you walked around with sheep's wool pulled over your eyes, half-drunk for 23 out of the 24 hours in a day, there's no other reason." She retorted playfully, snatching the letter out of his hands, examining the portion that he had just read.

"Aw..."

She waved the piece of paper impatiently.

"Don't you remember? We lived in Egypt, came back here and then we left again to find father, only to be distracted by Imhotep and his wiles, and after that, we returned again." She grimaced at the last part, realising the life that she had led only consisted of the frequent shuttling between Egypt and London.

The European woman whose spirit and soul were Egyptian, was easily ensnared by things that are sometimes more fantasy than she realised.

"Now who's idea was it to return hastily?"

"Well, Jon, the future certainly isn't told through my eyes."

"Why aren't you mentioning his name?"

"Who's name?" She inquired mock-innocently.

Jonathan Carnahan heaved a rueful sigh.

"Alright, if you say. I will make it all clear, to show you that time heals all wounds," His sister condeded. "That it now has no more of a hold on me." She cleared her throat, hesitating. "Because Egypt held painful memories then, when Rick O'Connell and I decided to part ways. So I am now, depending on the interpretation, either an eligible governess ripe for marriage or a spinster who will wallow in guilt. Up to you to choose."

"Bah! Positively old-fashioned, obsolete, tried and tested, old mum."

"Do not distract me from the letter! Why did you stop reading?" She slapped his back, causing him to lurch forward, stamping his foot down to regain his balance.

"Alright, alright, old mum. Continue such behaviour and we'll see which next man is athletic enough to challenge you when he comes along!" He hurrumphed, and started off once more.

"Oh, bollocks, get on with it!"

" _Your father and this uncle are in negotiations. They have been meeting with a very powerful man in Egypt - you are aware by now that power is always slippery and those who truly wield it are almost never seen. He brings with him, should integration of forces be successful, tens of thousands that will be at the disposal of the wafd. The man, whom you met years earlier, is Ishaq Bay._

_Your help is needed, I repeat, in this family. Our ties are too strong to be severed by 7 years. Bring your husband if you wish; he can take care of himself, but spare the lives of your young ones._ "

Silence.

"Intriguing." Evy said expressionlessly, looking through the contents of the letter.

" _May Allah protect you always, signed, Sayyed Mahmud Mahadeva._ "

"Grand-uncle Sayyed?" She asked.

"Probably. I never knew mother was involved in Egyptian politics."

"We wouldn't have known anything," Evy pointed out, "Too young to care, too young to understand. We thought mother's folks were chilling people and kept our faces turned towards the 'civilised' side of the world, which was father's, so to speak. Watch out Jonathan. A beautiful face might just hide a cunning, shifty brain."

"So you are saying that we do not quite know our mother at all."

"What I am saying, is that you are probably right. She never told us of her activities, neither did father, they simply looked happily married to us and that they were. Both of them left for Egypt when you and I were in boarding school - I came home to an empty house, several articles of clothing thrown around, as if they were too unimportant to fit into their trunks. Must have been a hurry." She got up hurriedly and set the water to boil.

"You think it was the letter? Our housekeeper was given strict orders to preserve the house as it was."

"So they thought that they were coming back to us then. No one knew that they never would. Strange that we only found these sheets of paper now." She shifted, and tip-toed to grab the basket of eggs, but the distance which they stood far exceeded the length of her arms.

"Dear brother, the eggs."

"So does this mean anything, Evy?" He handed the eggs to her, and then she saw that his gaze was unnaturally clear, the look on his face perceptive.

"Yes it does."

"Back to facing the demons huh, sis?"

"Breakfast, Jon?"

"Certainty, Evy. Now back to where we were -"

"Perhaps, perhaps not," she interrupted. "We will set out to do what we have always wanted to do, minus the distractions of the last time."

"For god's sake, Evy, don't you mention clump all the memories of the last time in Egypt as 'distractions'. I know they mean something - No no don't shake yer head, big girl." He wagged a finger, and said softly, "I sense this isn't just about Dad and Mum, Evy," He paused and said somberly. "It's also about you; you've been restless for 2 years and even in a state of drunkenness any fool can pick it out. The closure that you crave does not entirely lie with the fate of our parents."

She stared at him disbelievingly, her insides rioting against his frankness, yet amazed by the perspicacity of which he was capable and yet so seldom revealed, thanking him silently that he saw the moment important enough to share it with her, the niche in their unusual sibling relationship opened anew.

"Sometimes I forget brother to remind you that your sharp insights pierce the souls of the dead and living in London. But yes, assuming you are right, Jon. What do we do then, how?"

"Ishaq Bay. Ardeth Bay. See you any possible connection? I do say Evy, I feel quite proud of myself." Jonathan raised a brow.

"Worth a try nonetheless," she ignored that smart-mouthed quip. "With any luck, I might just find work in the Museum again. And you and your educated being might perhaps find the same post as a research assistant."

"Well, old mum. An excellent spirit that you're showing!"


	3. Needing Answers Desperately

It was as she remembered, the dusty air and the loud cries of the peddlers on the streets, the tantalisingly veiled belly-dancers who mingled seductively with their patrons and the occasional roar of vehicles on the dirt tracks that competed with the horses and the camels for space.

"Ah, old mum. Tis yer turn today. I did go with you the past few days, didn't I?"

That man, is evil and ungiving.

"Have you tried dressing like a belly dancer?" He held the parasol over their heads unwillingly, looking for every opportunity to close it and return it to her.

"What?" She asked in confusion.

He raised his hands in a defensive stance.

"The last time you did it, you captured the attention of a dashing soldier, didn't you? What better time to do it than now, especially now, when you do need information?"

"That's cheapening it!"

"It's called releasing the Carnahan charm whenever appropriate. I am quite experienced with it," he corrected with a smirk.

"I will not dare question that, brother."

"Seriously though, do you need help? I might help you with a few suggestive postures..."

"Enough said, brother. Highly improper in a country like this."

"Oh god, Evy, this primness is so unbecoming on you."

A picture of her mother sprang, unbidden, into her mind. Strange that being in her mother's native country unleashed all that was of her kept locked in her mind, that woman who was an enigma even to her children; giving and temperate as a mother, yet there was always a part of her that she and Jon were never able to reach, tempered by the cheerfulness of her father whenever the melancholy that emanated from her seemed overbearing.

Rahiq Mahadeva Carnahan had left her native country when her daughter was merely a child; on the ship to England, she had held Evy on her hip and waved goodbye to her land until its shores diminished into the morning mist, ceaselessly harbouring the patriotic streak of stubbornness and fierce loyalty to the cause of Egypt and her sovereignty. 

She was sure that her mother had been weeping, although no tears manifested on her face; she kept on many brave fronts, even when men failed.

_The torn entrails of Egypt that you see as we say goodbye_  
Her open loins for the taking as you ignore her silent groans  
My prayer for this age, I ask Allah for arising of wisemen  
Who carry in their hearts the whole past of the Egypt  
May they recognize the voices and the muted cries of those oppressed  
Wisemen who will see the sun 

It was brutally honest, the story of the rape of Egypt that her mother had told her, yet she had defied all odds by marrying an English man by fiercely insisted that love knew no boundaries.

Were her parents good people? Had they lived lives as people with dreams and youthful idealism, that perhaps diminished when their children were born? Did their lives tip the scales in favour of sorrow or of joy?

Heavens, she missed them, in the sudden nostalgia that the hot air brought, the curl of it in her gut making her want to retch.

"Baby sister, that face I see," her brother was eyeing her closely, puzzled at the sudden change in emotions that flashed across her face.

"I'm out to catch a few drinks or so, and will see you at the inn later?" He asked hopefully.

"Oh you cur! Get on with it!"

Their paths split; hers went straight onto the museum, his turned left and then right, disappearing into the shouts of the peddlers and the exotic women that milled around.

Evelyn Carnahan heard approaching noises and snapped her head upwards, adjusting the conservative shirt and skirt that she had chosen. The Museum of Antiquities was as exquisite and familiar as she had remembered, the new curator fastidious and unfamiliar. The museum was deathly silent, the type of silence sucked all kinds of noisy into it. Her footsteps were hesitant, until a short, roundish man came into view, displeased at the sight of her.

"Good afternoon, Abdul," she started out politely.

"Not you again, Miss," he groaned in exasperation. "Did I not tell you that there is nothing found here?" He stretched his hands out helplessly, exasperation obviously displayed at the tenacity of the woman who stood before him unmoving, arms crossed until she got some answers.

There she was, standing in the exact same position, in the exact same posture for a week, determined to eke out words that she would forcefully pry from his mouth had he not excused himself to the men's room after every few minutes enduring her quick tongue.

He had to tip his hat in grudging admiration – surely there was no one as persistent as she, not even men who had come to him, their façade cool and determined in the beginning, but defeated at the end of his tirade.

"...you have to trust me as I say this," she was saying, hands gesticulating as she spoke, animatedly. "You are the only hope I have," she whispered conspiratorially, "because there is possibly no one else I can speak to regarding this. Please. The whereabouts of the infamous Medjai leader Ardeth Bay."

Abdul pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Did you think that you might make me speak as you wish? Did you expect that your persistent lovely presence and wiles will loosen my tongue?"

"My intentions are honourable, truly! Do you think a lone lady would have the power to extinguish the Medjai? Or even outfight Ardeth Bay? He knows me, I'm sure he remembers me."

"I have told you all I know. I do not know Ardeth Bay!"

"But the previous curator was...I knew him you know, in fact I used to work here, for him, see, I can even tell you the catalogue contents of the library, which room housed the -"

"Miss Carnahan –"

"...arranged in a circular manner -"

"Miss Carnahan! The previous curator and your relationship whatsoever to him..that is not my business, Miss Carnahan. Will you please now go? It is not the safest time to travel to Egypt. Go back, please to where you came from."

"Now, don't be ridiculous, Abdul," she scoffed. Surely you know. Her voice grew softer, a lilt, melodious, pleading. "I do have a mission to fulfil and his help will be most appreciated."

He eyed her, with suspicion, admiration and disgust swirling in his face, shaking his head. The salutation, nevertheless, for the reverence of the stranger whose doggedness and diligence weaved rebellious threads of colour into the monochrome of the tapestries of his life.

Yet he could not – would not be moved.

"Do all you foreign females carry yourselves this way? With no sense of propriety? He chided heavily. Go home, Lady. I will not see you anymore unless –"

She frowned at his words, opening her mouth to let loose a flood of sentences that pointed to outraged modesty, pausing as her ear picked up the sound of heavy footsteps that moved with immense confidence, before the slight fumble in the walking rhythm brought it to a halt entirely.

"Evelyn Carnahan."

It was the voice that made her toes curl and her hair stand, the thought that she entertained all those months ago that it might be the voice she thought she had to accustom herself to, for the rest of her life.

Rick O'Connell.

The name came not as easily as she thought it would, blinking her eyes once, twice, she said in a voice which she fervently prayed sounded as cool and professional sounding as she could tailor it.

The brown, sun-kissed hair as she remembered, running her fingers through its luxuriant mass, that same piercing eyes and the powerful build that once and still looked as if they embraced totally, without abandon.

Was it as they said – that geographical distance is all bluff, when the heart was made to believe that the demons were all exorcised, lived in the hope of prudent simplicity and palpitated madly when the opposite came to pass?

Both stuttered, both stared at each other, but those were not stares of lovers who greedily sought to reunite; they were instead gaping, ridiculous looks of incredulity, disbelief and absurd pleasure, knowing that the presence of the other reminded them of pleasant times within the adventurous fight for their survival those years ago.

"Evelyn Carnahan," he repeated, fighting for his composure. "What brings you to Egypt?"

"Well, Rick – Mr O'Connell, I mean..." It was embarrassing, addressing an old flame in which the minute hope of passion rekindled still flickered.

"Just Rick." He stretched his hands out lazily, easily, that old charm returning the same fluid way a man downed alcohol after a hard day. "Is that not how we parted?"

"It is so," she confirmed, wanting to stay, and wanting to flee, pregnant with questions, only realising that he might be her indirect key to answers. There was a contentment about him that she couldn't quite place her finger on, feeling the haziest twinge of jealousy from the knowledge that he had gained a higher peace than she had.

"I see you know each other!" Abdul proclaimed exasperatedly. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

"And you would have believed me Abdul?" She parried smugly. 

The stout curator threw up his hands, muttering about the failing logic of women, turned on his nose and walked in the direction where Rick O'Connell appeared, inclining his head briefly to another imposing presence that passed through the walkway, who returned the greeting silently, emerging into the expanse of the lobby surprise written on his face.

"Evelyn Carnahan."

His voice was muffled, but still as arresting as she remembered, or perhaps more so, when the time lapse caused the mind to forget and create a vision that never justified the real. He was clad in his usual attire of black robes, shielding all but his eyes, until he pulled the veil down to clasp her hand gently in his, pressing it to his chest in the manner of greeting of close acquaintances. Yet there was something different about him, an older, riper countenance that the ghost of the Medjai chief did not yet posses two or three years ago, as if the world had slid by him, rewarding him in the only way it knew how – with permanent sadness etched in the face and soul-weary eyes.

"Ardeth Bay! The person I had waited a week to see," she cried out in relief, heaving a momentary joyous sigh, disregarding their clasped hands, rushing to hug him where she had hesitated to do so for Rick.

Hesitatingly his arms patted her back, where hers grabbed his with fervour, rejoicing in all that was familiar in Egypt.

"Taqiyyah asks for you," Ardeth said quietly to Rick, still in the embrace, who nodded and left, grateful to flee the disconcerted frame of mind that he had found himself unexpectedly caught in.

"Where's Rick?" Evy inquired curiously, peering around him.

There is something he needs to take care of, Ardeth motioned with a sharp gesture towards the hidden exit, taking a step back to maintain the appropriate distance between them.

"Surely you came here for something, Evelyn. It confuses me if you were to say it is merely a vacation."

She sighed.

"I need your help, Ardeth. Do you think you might grant me access to the government archive?"

His face changed, hardened at her request, even if it was a fleeting look; it made her understand the power he wielded over his warriors, a defining characteristic that crowned him chief over all.

"You do not know the far-reaching consequences of what you ask, Evelyn Carnahan."


	4. For none shall time stand still

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder: The Wafd - A Nationalist party that forcefully insists on Egyptian Independence from Britain.

Ardeth Bay stood unmoving in the back exit of the Museum, his booted legs bringing him into the noisy Cairo evening again, marvelling at the drift of thoughts that held his mind captive.

There was no apparent sign of followers nor messengers; there was a slight movement that the peripherals of his eyes caught, yet he couldn't be entirely too sure.

Dangerous times.

But he realised that such were the times that he had grown up in; he had not known any other era that he might have felt comfortable in – any time of peace would have been too absurd, too unthinkable for people who lived on the edge of both exhaustion and exhilaration, when they constantly fought ideologies and mindsets that exploded on the fringe of beliefs, never more prominent and insistent in such days, or when they fought the more sinister hold of their own blindness and panic, enemies found within themselves.

The council of leaders wish to see you, a voice filtered past the cacophonous drift of peddlars and he felt the light movement of paper slipping into his palm, the masked stranger with the veil moving into the foam of the crowd the same way he had come.

He had pulled his veil over his face as he exited the Museum hastily, becoming a figure of stealth and anonymity, or even a figure of fear and dread, depending on those who looked upon him. The faithful horse, the exquisite white Egyptian Arabian that was his father's awaited him patiently, neighing its soft, unique greeting before taking off with its beloved rider on a route well trodden.

He wondered how Rick reacted to Taqiyyah's summons, sudden and unexpected. The ex-French legionnaire soldier had grown undeniably in his esteem; now they trusted each other with their own blood; Rick was now bound to them, and they, to him.

Allah be thanked, that he had a powerful ally on his side, now that he was a wanted man, caught between the Medjai, his people and all who called themselves Egyptians. His hand went unconsciously towards the comforting curve of the scimitar that hung snugly at his hips, closing over its hilt tightly, knuckles trembling from the effort.

Ardeth Bay sighed.

He had seen, from the slight dip of her head that she was disappointed, perhaps even incensed that he had politely turned her down, but the persistence that Abdul had told him about had made him chuckle. Abdul, the loyal subject of his, who had pledged his life above his, another incomparable Medjai curator, just as the previous curator had been. It was easy to convince himself of the complacence that he was wont to feel, to reassure himself that the major ends of Egyptian affairs were safely in Medjai hands, ignoring the growing discontent that was stirring among some renegades.

Evelyn Carnahan's indomitable spirit touched him; it rekindled in him the fires of leading the Medjai, fighting for Egypt the underground way, fanning anew his principles that were unflagging until the nonsense with the Wafd began. Strange how a woman's spitfire had the power straighten his posture and renew his mind, triggering off a fresh onslaught of determination to restore the Medjai.

If only she had understood what had really happened to her father, seen its complexities and the issues that were enmeshed within. For that reason he was unwilling to show her the archives of correspondences that revealed all that had actually transpired.

But he couldn't – wouldn't tell her, the sentiment that a man should not sow further seeds of discord among family members starkly overbearing. There is method in man's wickedness – they grow in degrees, but their children should never pay for it, his firm stand unwavering, even in the hurt that he saw visibly emerge in her face. Scars, like spread raindrops had freely scattered on him, both physical and emotional – she couldn't have possibly known all that he dealt with, not even when they fought the One who shall not be named those years ago.

 _You do not know the far-reaching consequences of what you ask, Evelyn Carnahan._ He had told her somewhat harshly, ready to defend his cause, yet not wanting to offer a reason, praying that she would accept all that he said with good faith.

 _You, however, had promised the unending gratitude of the Medjai,_ she had answered him with even greater conviction, her eyes beseeching.

 _Surely you, Miss Carnahan, are no stranger to what we might call changing circumstances._ He had gritted back with equal intensity, wondering if she recognised the threat her request was posing, trying his utmost to enlighten her through his rebuttals.

_You withdraw the friendship of the Medjai then?_

_I said no such thing._

_But you implied it._

That was a friendship forged hastily and urgently, in necessity; he had remembered - a ghost of a memory nonetheless, the time when he promised her the friendship and gratitude of the Medjai, full of the accompanying exhilaration as he rushed out of Hamunaptra before its explosions singed him.

Now he wasn't sure anymore, in full recognition of the selfishness that arose, if he was paying the price for it now. Had only her highly inquisitive mind calmed, and rationally opted to return to England this very moment, then will all of them sleep in beds of ashes, with the past indeed buried and burnt out, the clock no longer striking the same hour as it had been doing throughout the years, where the living can then take their rightful place.

Only when she went away – if she went away, at all.

 _Then if I cannot appeal to you for this favour on the grounds of previous circumstances, would you accept this appeal as I make it, now, as someone who desperately wants answers for the peace of mind?_ She had said with open honesty, and it become antagonisingly clear to him that the ones with layers, with shades were in fact him and O'Connell, their entanglements too deep to redeem the simplicity of matters back to them.

He had seen with no little remorse that his words had unintentionally humbled her, yet, he was unyielding.

Each glistening minute had become precious, no sways of the minutest fractions could he allow, not when Egypt lay suspended between the Egyptians and the British. Both were unmixable, like oil and water, the Wafd had said, his father had said. But in truth he was not sure if he echoed such sentiments, guilt assaulting him for he knew that he ought to have felt the same way as his father and grandfather had, in the tradition of the unity of principles that the Medjai Chieftains need to govern with.

"No such luck, sis?"

Jonathan Carnahan lounged in a chair that looked altogether comfortable for him, his posture fitting for the Bourbon Kings of France as was the chair he sat in.

She was pacing restlessly, oblivious to all finery of the expensive hotel Jonathan had insisted in staying in, even if it was for a couple of days. He appreciated the fact that their room and very very much the whole of the hotel had preserved the architecture of Napoleonic Egypt, a quaint reminder of a Cairoan Paris of the 18th century.

Just to show them that we foreigners can't be trifled with, he had told her. She failed to understand such logic, and scolded him indulgently for orientalist weaknesses and over indulgence but nevertheless acquiesced; her eagerness to uncover the parental mystery overshadowing the lesser administrative duties.

"Not yet," Evelyn Carnahan gritted out. "But I will not take a negative for an answer."

"Met anyone interesting?" He asked casually.

"Not anyone whom we don't know," he admitted readily.

That had sparked interest; Jonathan leaped off the chair, not caring that it overturned, as he took his place in front of her, barring her any additional movement with his lanky frame blocking the doorway as she approached.

"Ah, saw important people then, did ye?"

"Rick O'Connell and Ardeth Bay in the flesh," she affirmed. But that was it.

"That was it?" He asked disbelievingly. "Surely Evy, you are capable of more."

She glared at him briefly.

"We were shocked and stunned and our emotions spoke more than our mouths. Not like that helped things. But lack of progress can be attributed to Ardeth's lack of co-operation. Of course, he thought granting me access to the government archives would be nothing short of a catastrophe." Her words were ironic, tinged with the slightest trace of bitterness.

Her bother gazed at her levelly, feeling as if the precious burden of the younger sibling had both paradoxically grown and lifted from his hands. The younger sister who was now never good-humoured without an edge of cynicism that had emerged only recently, a beautiful flower that seemed encased in transparent hard glass. Those who saw the flower from afar marvelled, while those who drew nearer for a closer look sighed in pity, for they saw that it was shielded by transparent yet solid impermeable material that expanded and grew in thickness, enhancing its appearance with a glorious sheen of reflected light, protecting the delicate petals from unwanted elements.

He mulled this over briefly. It would either work for her good, or against her. You must be foolish to think that people do not change, Evelyn had told him repeatedly; it was her mantra for the past few years and unknowingly, she had grown into the mantra; the power of her mantra had changed the artless woman as well.

He was disinclined to agree with her; he was grateful at least, and thought that he hadn't changed in the slightest bit, for people recognised the old Jonathan, the flaneur extraordinaire with a penchant for entertainment and everything feminine that walked upright on two legs.

Jonathan Carnahan frowned. Both at the Evy's behaviour and his own willingness to remain the same way he is. The naivety that had once terrified him now only appeared at will; he realised with trepidation that she had ejected him from her thoughts when once upon a time she had freely let them loose. If that signalled that she was finally learning the ways of the world, then he thought there was reason that Egypt had to be very afraid indeed.

"I met someone today," he ventured lightly. "Someone whom we met when we were younger, and did not recognise."

"Tell me more," she replied immediately, intrigued.

"Najya Savita Mahadeva."

"Not familiar at all, save for that surname."

"Are you sure?" He peered at her in disbelief. "Mother's cousin, Evy! She recognised me after the second confused glance, appraising me with large eyes and puckered lips. And then later showered me with either Arabic blessings or curses. Sometimes just knowing the basics of the Arabic language is indeed a hidden blessing."

"Well! It seems then that I was not the only one with encounters!"

"You could say that, old mum. At least you now know where we might turn to for additional sources and not to mention, alternative accommodation should our money run out."

"Just like you, Jon, to see the wily side of things."

"With me, baby sister, the crooked bones in the body open the way into deeper surprises that you never dreamed of."

"I will try my luck at the Museum until the bruised ego is finally nursed back to life."


	5. A house divided shall not stand

Your souls are suffering the pangs of hunger,  
and yet the fruit of Knowledge is more plentiful than the stones of the valleys.  
Your hearts are withering from thirst,  
and yet the springs of Life are streaming about your Homes - why do you not drink?  
The sea has its ebb and flow, the moon has its fullness and Crescents,  
And the Ages have their winter and summer,  
and all Things vary like the shadow of an unborn God moving between Earth and sun,  
but Truth cannot be changed, nor will it pass away;  
Why, then, do you endeavour to disfigure its countenance?  
\- Khalil Gibran, My Countrymen

The leadership was weary and so was he. But it was only the beginning, and that was why he dreaded it particularly. There was no end in sight, as far as he could see, a pessimistic shortcoming that he recognised as a recurrent fault in him; the black melancholy that surrounded him was ever present which he wore as he did his black robe, and deeply within he lay hidden.

The setting sun snapped the horizon in two, and the lone figure that galloped furiously on his indefatigable horse showed no outward signs of tiring, and briefly, he gave thanks as his soul momentarily lifted praise to Allah, relishing the dry, hot wind that intermittently flung coarse sand upon his cheeks.

Ah, so he was Ardeth Bay, the name that his father had so proudly named him when he was born, yet also the silent slave, a bondman to his tribe who seemed to fight losing battles these days, he thought dismally, the chieftain that would go down the Medjai annals as the one who rained disgrace upon all that was proudly Egypt. His messengers were rarely harbingers of peace, but prophets of ill news; death was a more welcome friend than life had been, and he had learnt that staying as an unwilling ally of it was way more profitable than insisting on becoming its enemy.

It occurred to him then, not without a twinge of guilt, that he had not thought of her as often as he felt he should have, that duties had imposed itself over the luxury of memories and sentimentality, wondering if he would have been the same man had she not died.

It was not many years ago, but time always covered one's mind and eyes with its large hands. It was something that he rarely visited, even if it meant within the confines of his mind, because of the suddenness and the shock that it had dealt him, a memory that was better left untouched, unstirred.

He had held her hand, pale and limp in his trembling ones, so tightly that his knuckles shuddered with the effort, as the last breath was stolen from her, the wondrous woman whom he had sweetly thought he might protect with all his life, the woman whom he thought in the ripeness of their season would share his bed and bear his heir. He thought of her now, not because he longed for her always, but to flood peace within himself, to colliding the mind's despondence with an illusion-rich image of Lena. He thought of her now, unconsciously, holding her up as his heart's shield because he had met Evelyn Carnahan, the faint stirrings within nonetheless too disturbing to douse.

She died with his father, both bountiful treasures of the heart that were snatched in the same day from him. How does one separate then the bonds that refuse to be unbound?

It was unfair to her, may her soul be richly blessed in paradise with Allah, the lovely Lena Shirin Bay, the woman whom the elders smiled upon, the woman who matched his fear and hot-headedness with a stubbornness and strength of her own. The one with whom he thought foolishly that Allah might grant them lives of respite and peace when it was not to be.

He was often lost in his thoughts. His council of leaders found him this way lately, withdrawn, eyes that flashed steel and then subtly, after he looked down and away, helplessness and despair that he knew had to be concealed from all that looked to him.

"Salaam, Ardeth. _Keefak_?" An elder met him, a warm greeting falling from his lips at the sight of the heir of Ishaq Bay, the gifted leader whose other sons were incomparable to this talented boy who had not disappointed, who had grown into a man of incomparable insight and self-restraint.

"Salaam, Azher," He pressed the elder's palm tight to his chest for a moment, before lifting it briefly to his lips. "Thanks be to Allah, I'm fine." His reply was half-hearted, yet necessary. "Come let us hurry."

They were waiting for him, the group that his father had completely relied on, and now he would honour tradition by doing likewise, taking his rightful place with the council of leaders all dressed in white in contrast to his black garb, faces reflecting an enlightened state that he had thirsted after, resigning himself to the passing of time to bestow that gift upon him.

Their greetings had been reverent and quick, yet solemn, as if the tumultuous days dampened their spirits. They had talked, sometimes arguing, sometimes in soft grieved voices, hashing out the same issues that must have been gone over again and again in the days when his father was still alive.

The flap of his own tent, built away from the rest of the population, lifted and closed as he stepped in afterward. Undressing mechanically, the legs found that it could no longer carry the weight of the entire body and the armour that he brought around with him, collapsing onto the lavish rugs that lined the edges of his pallet, his chest rising and falling as the voices from the council echoed around.

_No preliminaries. We have news that there is another development. Watch your back,_ the council had warned.

_Rick O'Connell discovered it, he is truly a great man, worthy of the Medjai, although his birthright is not as such._

_No, we are not too sure yet,_ another had objected.

_O'Connell has earned our trust. He is one of us. We will grant him that._

_Why are you slow to believe?_ Ardeth had asked.

He rubbed his hands over his aching eyes. There was a pitcher of water next to his pallet. He took it, and downed its entire contents in large gulps, not caring that it overflowed, running in heavy rivulets down his throat, down his chest, drenching his stomach and the pants. It was a comfortable wetness, a refreshing gift that he gave himself every night.

_You must stay low, Ardeth. There is unrest in the city. The enemy lurks deep, and you can trust no one._

He wanted to scream and shout his fury away - for to trust in no one was impossible. Surely we were made for companions too, not just enemies.

"You can trust Rick O'Connell. He is one of us," he had told the council uncompromisingly. 

The empty pitcher was placed back where he found it. And in the fading light, he saw two women, their faces so dissimilar, both smiling, inviting him into their warmth, wanting to stretch both arms out, to embrace them both without hesitance until a force pulled him back, whispering that he had neither of them.

_Surely you do not want a continuation of violence. That way, none shall survive. A house - the house of the Egyptians that fights within itself shall not stand!_

_Ishaq Bay had died honourably. He died fighting someone - the English, the foreigners, who were not our own. That is surely deserving of credit, do you not agree?_

And he was left weary, wearier than he felt in years, more tired than he had been after skirmishes with the Wafd, longing for all that was joyful, a feeling or sentiment that he was convinced would ripple through him as a foreign element should Allah grant another experience of it.

"What my father started must have then been a mistake", he had retorted calmly.

Shocked faces, others were accepting and amused.

Your father's decision is best left at that. He thought it was right then. But he never knew that circumstances would be such. The English were abominable, in his sight. But you have made friends with them, proving that we are not all unapproachable. That was the reason that fuelled him to pledge allegiance to the Wafd.

And look at the death that he died, the bitterness that came from his lips was unprecedented, and the number of people that went down with him.

"Ardeth, the past cannot be changed. We can only honour their memory by honouring all that they have started and finishing it through," another Elder in the council had advised. 

"Have you forgotten the purpose of the Medjai? To protect the ancients, the heritage of Egypt."

"But you must also fight, for a cause. Those who do not betray only themselves - empty vessels that have no inkling whatsoever of why they live."

He had resisted that strongly, only because it struck a resonant chord in him.

"Fahroud," he had turned on an elder. "Surely you have not forgotten those who have died, your children, your father?"

He saw with grim satisfaction, the perceptible hardening of the jaw, and a liquid fire that slowly replaced the glazed look of the eyes.

"That much you are right, Ardeth. Your father, my daughter Lena Shirin who was also your wifeand one other, Fahroud had sighed."

"One other?" Ardeth had asked.

"Had you not known? Did Lena not tell you?" Fahroud had stuttered with great shock.

He had shaken his head mutely, his words choked at the throat, fearing the worst.

"She was carrying the next Medjai heir, your Medjai heir, when her breath was snatched from her", Fahroud had whispered slowly.

It was fearsome, the anger that had washed over him as a tidal wave would have swept and demolished Alexandria, yet he knew, that its display in front of the council rendered him an ineffective warrior, and the dark, swirling fury that churned inside only manifested itself as the tightening of his fists.

Shadows danced outside his tent; it had grown dark, firelight twitched with the movement of people, yet it was very still in his tent. The water that was slowly evaporating off his face streamed down his eyes anew. Every fibre stood on end, refusing to recognise that all might have been different had he done things differently, had he watched more closely over her - 

He shook his head wearily. Would he be cursing his own name until he died? 

There was nothing left in the tent that reminded him of her, in the frenzied, insane ritual he had taken upon himself to purge all living memories of her, until Fahroud's revelation restored the past to him, a past that was again new and fresh with wounds, distorted immediately by a luxuriant basket of the painful emotions that all indeed abhorred to have flung upon them. So this was the seizure, he thought, the seizure that divided his life from the past and the present.

He now had an additional, unnamed foetus to mourn for, the bundle of blood in her womb that would magically grow into the form of a small human, his seed.

Why had you not told me, Lena? That I might share your joy? Had you been afraid that I might have dominated your life, and stifled your vibrancy as you had often accused me of?

She had defied him, had borne arms when she knew of her perilous condition, a tranquillity that alternated itself with her spirited nature that disallowed placidity, bordering on the edge of rebellion, a contradiction in her nature that had both maddened and attracted him.

The past had to be buried again, but not before the mourning.

It had not taken him long to demand a consensus from all who sat there.

This meeting will conclude with something concrete, he had announced forcefully, gaining the attention of the increasingly restless council, surprising them, whose differing opinions could not be appeased completely.

"I am laying down my cards. Hear what I have to say, before you make your decision. I want a council that is firstly, not divided in itself."

"Nearly ten years ago, Ishaq Bay had given the Medjai over to the Wafd, in a bid to gain the independence of Egypt from the English. He was my father - I will not question his insight now, nor his reasons for doing so, and as many of you have pointed out, circumstances were different then. But I now wish to withdraw the Medjai from the Wafd, and there is division within because some do not want to do so, while some agree with me. Will you question my decision now, or is there unanimous support? I expect fully to encounter dissent, hatred and unhappiness. Maybe even betrayals. But it has to be done. Do you pledge your loyalty?"

They had thrown in their votes, finally, some willingly, some reluctantly, promising the unflagging loyalty of their tribes, but then again, he was never too sure any more. Sometimes the words of men failed, so loosely given and so easily retracted.

Trust was so precious a commodity, and the urge to construct a hedge of protection around himself was too compelling to ignore, too urgent to deny.


	6. The unexpected turn of events

Cairo probably never slept. It was the same bustle of activity, of pushing and shoving, of loud beggars, noisy carts, of mysterious women and persistent stall keepers, night and day.

It was times like these when Evelyn Carnahan wondered if the meaning of life stretched beyond waiting, a routine carved out of a necessity imposed upon herself. The surroundings looked the same, as they had for the past week, the buzz of people that converged and diverged upon a point, the careless spills of chatter that wafted past her ears.

Jonathan had disappeared once more, yet he was unwilling to tell her anything more than the customary phrase 'I'll be back by nightfall, sis' and she had learned to accept that their lives were not as linked as she had expected, not without little pain. It was an unpredicted time of change, to a large extent, engineered by her. Had she not suggested the return to Egypt, perhaps things might have stagnated where they were in England, falling all too easily into a routine, caught in a muted living with ears and eyes that were no longer be attuned to the welcoming pleasures and the unfamiliar interruptions that every slightest change would bring.

She strode, purposefully into the entrance of the Museum, heels clicking determinedly against the cool marble -

"Miss Carnahan." 

It was Abdul, with a slight roll of his eyes, resigned, fingers drumming the surface of the desk he manned.

"Abdul," she acknowledged wryly, raising a curved brow. "I am perhaps fast becoming part of the exhibit if this continues, you know."

"Yes, perhaps," He eyed her thoughtfully, wondering if he should dismiss her as he had been doing for the past week, until it was confirmed before his very eyes that she indeed, had affiliations of sorts with the Medjai chief and the latest addition to the Medjai, that American Rick O'Connell.

A certain movement caught his eye and he excused himself hastily, disappearing behind an inconspicuous door behind his desk abruptly.

She would know the reason soon enough.

It was bewildering, and not to mention rude, Evelyn Carnahan thought, to have a person leave in the middle of what she thought might shape up to be a decent conversation, feeling nothing less than a fool for her intrusion. For the first time since her arrival in Egypt, she wondered if she and Jonathan had made a mistake.

And out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed a black figure, the spectral presence that hovered at the edge of his vision, before materialising into the human form of Ardeth Bay. He stood at the threshold, directly underneath the arch looking at the retreating back of O'Connell, who seemed to be avoiding her each time they met.

"Ardeth," she said without reserve, a sudden shamelessness washing over her almost immediately as she said those words, the knowledge of her persistence causing her to colour slightly.

"Miss Carnahan," he inclined his head, eyes grave. "Please, do allow me to speak first. If I had offended you in anyway the last time we met, please forgive me. I cannot take my words back, however. It is not safe for you to remain here. Take the first ship out of Egypt while you still can."

"Evy," she insisted, amazed at her own brazenness.

It could have been a smile, that imperceptible movement of his lips at her hurried input, correcting not his content, but his manner of address. But he waited, and said nothing.

She distinctly felt the urge to curse the politeness out of him, wanting to alternate between shouting at him for keeping her in the dark, wanting to rail at Rick O'Connell for behaving as though she carried a deadly pestilence, yet it was all carved outwardly into a tight smile.

"Will you at least answer my questions, Ardeth?" She challenged. "If your answers satisfy all that I need to know, then I will go back to England."

Perhaps it was a half-lie, and half a promise, she thought, regretting the words that fell so readily.

"You lie, Evelyn Carnahan. Was that a condition that I just heard? The wiles of women I am quite well acquainted with." He laughed then, a short but full-bodied expulsion of sound that made her breath catch in turn; it was the first time she had ever heard the Medjai warrior express anything other than the serious emotion, even though it was a laugh of disbelief, watching with no small wonder the subtle way it erased the lines from his eyes and metamorphosed the heavy-laden man into an untroubled one for but a moment.

"Perhaps." She graced him with a wicked look in return. "Will you help me then?"

He relented, she knew, by observing carefully the softening of his eyes first, before the words followed.

"You will ask then, and I will try to answer." There was reluctance in his tone, yet he found himself questioning with astonishment the all too ready agreement that came from his misbehaving mouth. For it was in her face he glimpsed briefly Lena Shirin, the same dark, bright eyes and the indomitable spirit that seemed to dictate the movements of the whole body, and for her he fell on his knees, refusing nothing. Her memory now, this desecration of happiness that was still close to the surface, brought brief tears, of which he suddenly felt ashamed, clearing them with a hasty blink before turning back to her, made earnest by that fleeting spell of emotion.

It was no longer denied, but it was odd, that she had received all that she had asked, yet stumbled around for words now, that her answer had come in the form of a man who would tell her all she wanted to know, for she had expected to form her own conclusions through the painstaking method of research in the archives.

He hoped, fervently, that she only asked him questions by which he would answer without hesitation, guilelessly.

"Did you ever hear of Rohan Carnahan?"

"The answer must be both a Yes and No. My father would have been a better person to answer your questions, but he is unfortunately no longer with us." Praise be to Allah, that he could suddenly speak with wisdom and caution, or so he thought.

"Is he by any chance alive? Or if no, how did he?" To pronounce this word laid claim to the finality of the situation, something which she was unwilling to let go; the struggle that was strong within merely appearing as speechlessness.

"He was killed, Evy," His voice had lost its edge, a caress, gentle and soft, like the smoothest silk that royalty coveted, gliding, stroking. "During the scuffles between the Wafd and the English troops almost a decade ago."

Was it moisture that she found gathering at the back of her eyes? She found herself wanting to shed tears for a father whose life as a parent was snuffed, whose end she had not witnessed, grateful for the reprieve time had granted, yet outraged at the way he was lost to her, amazed at the enormity of the emotion that loss never failed to bring about.

"I am sorry for your loss. I know the loss of a parent, a beloved, " he offered solemnly, thankful that she had not pursued the matter further, rushing to offer his belated condolences with great empathy, raising his arm to lightly touch hers, catching the slight shiver that ran through her, the corners of his mouth turning up.

She thought, chastely, of her father, the valiant hero whom every child might idolise. Had he and Rahiq Mahadeva not returned to Egypt, they might have remained the quintessential family in London, riding the new wave of culture that raged throughout the generation, amusing themselves with the unpredictable trends that swept across the Continent, to France, and finally, to isolated ol' England.

What if.

He thought, with the same sorrow, perhaps with a greater measure of stinging pain, of his wife and his child, grieved that the devourer, the cloak of mourning was only placed now on him after all those years, where it should have already been taken off and cast away into Sheol. It was not, he thought ruefully, the present that he particularly felt sorry about, rather, it was how the present might have become should she had not died.

What if -

There was an unrest that seemed imminent, so screamed his warrior instinct, pleading, wailing its harsh cry, yet his eyes registered nothing, and they darted to and fro, along with the slight movements of his head, wary, the barest movement carving his face into stone. His fists, his torso cried out, in a madness of frenzy, the knuckles tightening quickly - it took him a while to realise that Evelyn was still speaking.

"You see, no, I would like to know, why Rick seemed rather unwilling to face me." It had caught him by surprise, she knew, from the way he stared at her for a while, speechless.

It had never been more embarrassing, she reflected, that he had agreed to answer all that she had wanted to know, in expectation of political questions that was fitting her station, and probably brought herself lower in his esteem by spilling forth a statement that not only betrayed a major concern of hers.

"I was not aware that he was deliberately doing so," Ardeth frowned, confused. "But if it will give you peace of mind, O'Connell is no longer a stranger to the Medjai."

He saw her open her mouth again, confused, sharp in realising that the Medjai seldom, if not never, took in people as their own, unless -

But it was the ear-splitting sound of the bullets riddling through the compound of the museum that halted all conversation; they were caught unawares, as Abdul appeared once more, bearing arms, yelling hoarsely in Arabic staccato phrases to Ardeth, who nodded before springing into action.

He had grabbed her roughly, by the waist before diving towards the ground, faced downwards, so close that her lips tasted the unpleasant coarseness and bitterness of the ground and her back felt the delectable warmth and strength of his body covering hers.

It was truly uproarious, and Ardeth breathed in unconsciously, as if he savoured the anarchic movements of the warring factions, knowing that he was never more in his element in the charged atmosphere, scrambling upwards, dragging Evy with him towards the neighbouring buildings that offered shelter.

"Do not move from here!" He ordered before he swiftly drew his scimitar from its scabbard, running out into the sea of confusion.

The skirmish lasted possibly no more than half an hour, she estimated as she lay unmoving, struggling to draw her watch from her pocket, snorting to herself at the ungraceful picture she made, quite possibly the only one sprawled on the floor of the museum that had emptied itself of chirping tourist when the first gunshots had rung out.

"Incredible...impossible," Evelyn muttered to herself, knowing that those words did not quite make sense, yet not bothering.

She hoped to god that Jonathan kept himself far away from brawls, crossing her fingers before making the quick sign of the cross. Hell, if she had a good luck charm, she would have rubbed it within her palms too. He was only able to manage brawls neatly after a bottle of scotch.

It was safe to at least get myself up into a position less compromising and dangerous, thought she, scrambling on her knees and skirt, tripping slightly in the process, the last traces of the hasty youth reappearing in instances like these. Remarkably, the wild shot of panic that coursed through her had disappeared, and the calmness that she felt in the middle of the brawl outside amazed her deeply, like the unmoving eye of storms that devastated parts of the country.

There were shouts from downstairs, and the chorus of voices felt as if the skirmish moved away from the vicinity of the museum. There was a vantage point from the higher floors of the museum, she realised, taking its sprawling marble steps in large strides and stretches, exerting herself entirely, panting as she looked down from an obscure window from the top levels of the building.

What she assumed to be a minor skirmish turned out to be a worryingly bloodbath that littered injured bodies over the narrow streets; the damage done was too great before the local law keepers arrived to break it up. The mob had become the law, in the meantime, the crisscross of gunfire between those clad in black and the civilians dictating who lived in such times.

Had the Medjai stooped so low as to strike even the unassuming civilians?

She admitted that the thought had never crossed her mind, and to entertain it now of all times had a profound effect on her bearing. A sharp, loud curse had interrupted her state of shock, and she looked down again, only to see an unnamed man, drenched in blood, covering what was once a pristine white suit, draw his last breath with great difficulty.

"Evelyn Carnahan. It seems as if you are not quite a woman who listens well to instruction." The voice was unfamiliar, and she imagined such words said with a snarl, yet turned around to see the man who voiced them to be smiling slightly. His face was covered and all she was was striking green eyes.

"Do I know you?" She proceeded cautiously. "No, I don't believe we've met before."

"You simply don't remember only," he said and held out his hand. "I'm known as Severige to many."

"Severige?"

His lips twitched.

"Closer acquaintances know me intimately as Yasser Mahadeva. I believe your mother was Rahiq, wasn't she? I am a cousin of hers. Najya's brother, whom your brother had the fortune of running into yesterday," he spoke quietly, hushed, urgently. "But we must go now. There are a lot of people anxious to meet you. You are safe with me, among family."

He held out his hand, and with no small reluctance she took it and slipped out with him.


	7. Into the fray he went

It was worrying to have left her face-down, spitting out bits of sand in his haste to ensure she suffered no hurts. But she would be alright, Ardeth Bay tried to reassure himself, for the peace of his own mind. Evelyn Carnahan, the woman resourceful enough to find him, would hopefully be equally resourceful in emergencies such as this.

He took no heed of her as his feet brought him to the threshold that separated the dead and the living; seeing bloodbaths made his own run cold and hot alternately.

Noise, confusion and madness. 

Pitiable wails of the dying that faded, curious stares of onlookers, and the inhuman howls of the badly injured.

And it overtook him for a long while, a solitary, unmoving figure possibly carved out of stone, standing at the periphery of the fray, scimitar in hand, glimpsing the flashes of silver reflected under the unrelenting sun, hearing explosions of gunshots around him, amazed that he was not yet taken down.

Ancient war cries, made upon the honour of the Medjai were scattered about the street - he knew them as intimately as he knew his body, and he repeated them in his mind each time a cry was uttered, fortifying his strength, expanding the senses until plethoric visions lavishly encircled themselves within him, images of the numerous military victories of the fearsome Medjai he had witnessed as a child. Watching his faithful warriors now taking down the sea of people who so deceptively dressed as civilians roused indescribable wrath, but also incommunicable sadness. The savage, esoteric impulse pounded hard and deep inside, begging for a release that he would immediately satisfy.

Ardeth Bay emptied his lungs with a raw, piercing scream, shouting the same ancient cry which he could pour out without reserve, now that it was allowed to saturate and sustain his soul, that very insistent pounding shifting from the savage impulse to the savage, excruciating inundation of erupting fury manifested externally as he saw a nemesis magnified.

It blinded and shocked him, two contrasting emotions that he did not care to reconcile, catapulting with great force into the first offender he recognised at the speed of a camera click, a Medjai renegade who had the ill fortune of swinging wildly at him cut down without hesitation.

The triumph was short-lived as a quick but lengthy slice from a neighbouring scimitar slashed and loosened the fastenings of his robe and nicked the skin underneath, deflating that plush battlefield vision he was carrying but for a moment, just as the top of his robe hung limply, unbalanced off an arm.

He had hoped this day would never come, when the assault turned personal.

The one he knew who singled him out the moment he appeared at the doorstep of the museum, scimitar in hand. And they had to exchange blows today, the time of reckoning that probably determined if the madness would stop.

Ardeth Bay felt like a great fool, hoodwinked into brawl; such a thought now nagged at the back of his mind, replaying harshly the moment he mindlessly ran out into the fight, knowing only that he had to protect his own, yet not fully comprehending the reason why he fought.

Internally torn and perturbed, suddenly wanting to castigate himself, knowing that there was enough blood to stain all the heavens. But he could not stop, no matter what menagerie of reasons his mind threw out, until he found himself entombed within the deepest levels of anguish and pain that completed and reinstated him as chief and leader, atoning for the endless and perhaps unnecessary bloodshed of the recent years.

Ardeth Bay swallowed the acrid taste in his mouth, the victim of guilt and sorrow, convinced of the sly hypocrisy that existed in everyone, bowed to his invisible masters as he fought now, on all levels, against his enemies, against himself.

_Perhaps you fight unnecessarily._ He heard Lena Shirin's voice float mockingly out of each parry and thrust that his opponent advanced, singeing his flesh with her words, injuring it in rivulets of red.

_No compromises, my son._ It was Ishaq Bay's commanding voice that held him prisoner. _Sometimes the greatest enemy is unseen or the closest to you. But be sure of it before you act._

_Allah help us all, if you ever tried to take the place of rule and creator._ Lena said again, the insolent woman who humbled him with her mix of sensuality and candidness.

Oh how he knew it, on a level that he had not cared to admit and explore until now; it seemed the most miscalculated time to philosophise.

But outwardly, all had turned into a visual choreography, a deadly dance that was stunning in every move, robes that flapped with each flexible turn of the scimitar in his hand in the dance to death of one or the other. His muscles flexed, and bulged under the strain of the effort, loudly singing their strength, the virtuoso of resilience, steering clear of his opponent's blow, gracefully pitching back similar blows and missing no beats. The sumptuous display of physical dexterity that was initially dazzling in the stale air now carried the smell of death, the final rounds of the great game set to a slow burn.

They dodged the surrounding smattering of gunfire with some effort, yet running in synchronisation and weaving around the injured bodies, still at blows with each other, correctly guessing each other's style of fighting, anticipating each carefully executed stance and backlash. A lift, a parry and a strike blurred, undefined, between the warriors, the sparring no longer friendly but tinged with craze, strained in the bloodshot eyes of the other.

His now-enemy's defection to the Wafd and renunciation of the Medjai heritage had caused Ardeth Bay great distress, that much was obvious in the intervening years. But he had known that it would come down to this, and it was clear to both that one of them had to die today. The greatest price of unceasing malaise and plaguing disquiet, he thought, that one paid while choosing between the ancient and the modern.

The slice of the enemy's scimitar was close. His thick robes had thankfully protected him, but were torn in the process. The destroyed robe was hastily and violently shed from his body, leaving him clad only in his black pants and boots, the exposed olive torso, hard and exquisitely planed, gleamed with blood and earthy exertion, conspicuously visible in the swell of black bodies that moved towards and away from him, not unlike the ebb and flow of an ominous sea, great waves colliding in existential angst.

It was as though the tearing of his clothes had helped him shed his own inhibitions and his lingering sadness over his foe; the unclothed state had made him feral and unforgiving, an overcompensation for his physical and emotional vulnerability. His ferocious attack increased in intensity. They were caught in each other for indeterminate amount of time before he swung an unrecoverable blow to the side of his enemy's thigh, making him buckle and collapse. 

The protocol was to lift his scimitar high and bring it down in a single, unmerciful blow - his enemy knew it well too. Too well to shiver in dreaded anticipation and expectancy, the execution performed with impeccable skill and matchless sorrow.

Ardeth Bay froze, his white-knuckled grip on the scimitar faltering. 

"I will finish it if you can't." There was a quiet voice at his side that shook him out of his deranged meditation, and he turned to see an equally bloodied Rick O'Connell who had made his way up to his side.

He looked down again, this time in wretchedness, towards Mejdan Bay, the younger brother of his that lay lame because of his faithful scimitar, knowing that the rift between them would only be bridged through death and the lingering early childhood memories of happier times.

"I am victorious today, only because I sensed your lapse in concentration," Ardeth murmured softly. "The blood that runs through our veins betrays us as brothers." 

He turned to Rick and gestured urgently. "Evelyn Carnahan is still in the museum. Find her."

Rick O'Connell was gone without so much of an additional prompt. Ardeth needed the time with that blood brother traitor of his.

The injured party twitched, a brusque smile lining his face.

"No, your victory is mine. I give my life to freedom without prejudice, not lose it to an infidel," Mejdan Bay spat, evocative words that branded itself with stinging fire on Ardeth's open chest, containing more voltage than every firearm combined. "Do not bother. I do the honours cleaner than you ever would. The Almighty welcomes me into His paradise today."

Ardeth Bay gazed into the identical curling black hair and amber eyes of his own, powerless to prevent the sudden and direct arching sweep of his brother's own scimitar into his own belly that incised cleanly, his hands grasping the hilt tightly, gurgling up the asphyxiating stew of blood that he drowned in, seeing the last jerks fade into nothing.

"Defiant till your death," Ardeth whispered, oblivious to his own weapon dropping limply to the ground, feebly bending down to touch Mejdan's forehead in a fatigued farewell that bespoke a weariness beyond measure. The uncontrolled fury that he had loosed flickered and abruptly expired into soft glowing embers, its aftermath only a dull, icy cold emptiness that deceived, winked and mocked.

Ten years, twenty, perhaps a hundred could have passed in between, the redolently bitter and poignant moment timelessly captured, ornately crowning one fallen brother with a grace long forgotten and scoffed by men, cruelly apportioning - no, cursing the other one with bereavement simply because he lived.

The mourn was interrupted by a frantic holler and running footsteps that drew closer and closer.

"Ardeth! She is no longer there!" There was frustration evident in Rick's shout, approaching the scene of massacre, leaving little doubt who had remained alive.

Lena Shirin, Ishaq Bay, and now Mejdan Bay. Irrationally angry at this counterfeit emotion that promised neither reward nor fulfilment, that same pulsating and pounding in his blood roared lustily to life again, even if for a brief moment, its now vulgar head rearing itself in an aberrant, paganistic rave as he lunged recklessly at Rick O'Connell in a flawless pugilistic movement without picking up his scimitar. Its primordial imprint was lost on him; the force that propelled them both back into a wall breathtakingly severe.

"What in the name of Allah was that?" He ground out, hard, through gritted teeth, trembling hands nonetheless grabbing the lapels of O'Connell's previously pristine shirt.

"Listen to me - she must either have wandered off -"

"You fool, Allah's most despicable of creatures!" He growled, swinging his fist around to hit Rick O'Connell in the side of the cheek, earning himself a return punch on the other side of his face.

It was equally violent, this additional scuffle that took place as a vent of emotions, forcefully draining and wringing the insanity of the Medjai chief and bringing out the bewildered self-defense of the ex-French Legionnaire soldier who blocked the blows with increasing alarm.

"For the love of god, this maniac! Before we lose our senses!" Rick had grabbed him firmly on the shoulder; they both panted before falling onto the ground in a careless heap.

The sky was a horizontal, endless snapshot of blue and grey where they both lay looking up, sprawled inelegantly in the near deserted adjacent lane, feeling the inconsistent rhythm of retreating footsteps rattle the ground and the ensuing silence abnormally thunderous.

It was a desperately mellifluous plea to Allah; that was all he heard as he turned towards Ardeth, whose injured back was dirtied with sand and perspiration, yet pleased to see the shifting of the stormy emotion and its dark clouds.

Rick sighed. An apology had to do. If not Ardeth, then him.

"I'm sorry, I did not stop them soon enough." The apology was curt, brief, but he knew they were heartfelt enough to send the man spiralling down the path of contriteness. "Rather, the network is far too wide-reaching and influential."

"I want to assure you that all if well, but it is not," Ardeth stated simply, eyes tightly shut, the rigorous clean up ahead loomed, daunting. "But my absolute trust in you, my brother, has not wavered. You promised your loyalty to us a while ago and you have not taken that responsibility lightly. For that I already thank you deeply. It is my apology that you need, not the other way around. Evelyn Carnahan is a woman resourceful enough to take care of her own being."

It was recompense enough, erring on the side of caution.

"No guilt then." O'Connell's face morphed itself into a foolish grin, clapping Ardeth Bay soundly on the back.

The fragile moment between the two men, so different yet so alike, broke, replaced by a warmer camaraderie that kept the violence at bay, at least until their wounded were carefully tended to.

_Oh Allah_ , Medjan Bay still deserved his family's burial, even if his political leanings were left better unspoken. Filled with regrets, he got up sullenly and cradled his brother's dead form in his arms, whispering a farewell prayer to his motionless form.


	8. Sorrow Songs

Evelyn Carnahan wondered about the fighting that she left behind but the pressure of Severige's hand on hers was too hard to ignore, his outpouring of predatory instinct too pure to disregard.

"Come," he had urged in a whisper, beckoning her towards a nondescript door that led out to the other side of town, quieter, unexplored at this time of the day.

There was an air about him that tingled her senses. His nearness was disconcerting, overwhelming; each time he turned his eyes in her direction it was as if he visually forbade the intake of breath of every creature under heaven to stand unchanged in his viridian gaze, unmediated under open sun or in shade.

Just then another hand grabbed hers. Its grip was tenacious, tentacle-like, aging fingers gnarled and demonically ugly, precise and ancient scars lining the tops of each fingertip. She traced the source of the touch, eyes roving quickly upwards.

Lyanka. She had no last name, the nomad that many believed her to be, who made her home where she pleased, leaving no traces of herself when she left a place.

The woman whom Evelyn had known the last time she was in Egypt, so old that she gained a reputation as an ageless deity, whom 'they' claimed as an adroit practitioner of the black arts and the religiously forbidden, rewarded for such by the unknown length of her days yet also cursed by the very same arts she practiced that made her age like a witch. Popular legends surrounded her like wild shrubbery, that she had raised the dead to life calling upon the power of the Egyptian gods, that she had learnt her gypsy arts from the far east of the Continent before journeying by foot to Egypt in the past century, generating a wary distance and a respectable reverence from all who met her. She was strange and best avoided like the plague, commanding the Detlene, the wandering spirits of the Stillborns after you at leisure, unless one needed their fortune told with the greatest urgency.

She gave a small smile, but Evelyn Carnahan could not be sure she was actually doing so, unless one classified the almost grotesque twist of the mouth to expose teeth that were of different lengths and varying shades of yellow.

Severige's face was a picture of mild interest as they halted in the middle of the dirt road.

"Lyanka!" She cried out in surprise, smiling widely at the gypsy whom she thought merely craved a wave of recognition from her.

But it was not a pleasant call, as it seemed, judging from the stern look on the old woman's face. And then she made a simple gesture, a violent swing of her right arm to the side twice, and then thrice, warningly.

_"Bolde tut, kako, kako. Tshi."_ Turn away, turn, now. Run.

It was not a language that fell strangely on her ears yet it required no knowledge of foreign tongues to interpret Lyanka's frantic gesture as an admonition of sorts. The pressure of Severige's hand on hers had increased slightly; he already felt like family - no, he was family, she corrected herself, as long as she kept her focus on his eyes and his form. But she had yet to see his face, which she hoped to be a sight that did not disappoint.

Yet it was difficult to shrug off the discomfort that had suddenly presented itself, superficial as she had tried to call it, to dismiss it as a passing perception.

Lyanka's diminishing form was tonally no softer however; it was as if she feared something, afraid that Evelyn Carnahan had not caught her meaning, vociferating out several sentences this time in Romany, repeating them in Arabic, in poor English, the torrential jumble of words this time producing an abominable, an undesirable reaction that rolled out therein when she caught its meaning.  
 _  
You will sing sorrow songs; it will find you  
Sorrow songs, sorrow songs_

What?

_Rikono!_ Lyanka spat, directing the venomous expletive towards Severige even as they rapidly walked away, her hand tightly held in his, her head turned back towards the irate gypsy. _You dog_ , she had called Severige. Had she known the sacrilegious and the profanity of such implications?

His eyes had darkened into the green of the sea that reflected an imminent storm, brows rigid and unyielding in a fierce scowl, and she imagined his tight jaw pulsing with a great pounding vein, yet he persistently said nothing to her.

They crossed the dirt path into yet another street, before he ushered her into an old, nondescript car. He relaxed his hold on her, the tension substantially flowing out of him when he slumped slightly over the wheel.

"The woman offends me. Beyond belief," Severige told her quietly. "Forgive the silence. I did not know how to react and chose instead silence until the anger abated."

"Then you could not possibly have better timing since you had spared words painful on a lady's ear," she remarked lightly, "A lacking quality in many gentlemen indeed!"

Severige inhaled slowly and grinned, pulling off his veil, revealing his looks that made Evelyn Carnahan wish they had no blood relation. "Then a highly qualified gentleman I am. I beg your pardon once again. It is not my usual behaviour among family members as such."

He was so classically handsome, fairer than most Egyptians, the aquiline sides of his face and the greenish hue of his eyes lending him a sharpness and an aristocratic air that made most people mistake him for a Westerner than an Arab. She felt herself grow in admiration of him, if only for his beautiful face. 

The car was started, and he drove for a short distance before they stopped.

"We have to walk a bit more, if you don't mind."

She did not understand such secrecy, neither could she assimilate the implications of it all, lulled into a sense of security by the charms of one who called himself family.

"Please, come in," he urged, looking surreptitiously around before disappearing through a doorway in a smarmy part of Cairo that she knew existed yet had never dared venture into.

It was entirely too dark, the whole place; half-expecting scampering rodents that savagely gnawed at all that barely lived, yet the brevity of the sharp Cairo light that illuminated a room when the door opened and closed threw light on a dwelling so opulently furnished, boasting so greatly in its plentitude that it stood in stark contrast to and put to shame the dearth conditions of the street outside.

"Old mum?" There was an uncertainty in that dear voice, as if her name were a mouthful.

Jonathan. Evelyn Carnahan had never been so joyous at the sight of him; the face of a beloved rascal brother nearly moving her to tears, rushing into his arms ignoring the bewilderment on his face.

"I have many questions, Jon! About the morning, the time that I took to get here -"

"Shh, Evy, hold there a bit," he whispered. "We are not alone. There are pairs of eyes that are currently rudely staring at the supposed overt English display of affection, even if it's a pure unromantic embrace between siblings."

"What?" She pulled back in confusion, catching sight of several gazes that were either amused or critical.

"Evelyn," Severige approached warmly. "As happy as you are to see your brother, please allow me some introductions. My sister and also your mother's cousin, Najya Savita Mahadeva, our immediate family." He gestured grandly with his hand.

They were beautiful people, Evelyn thought, with their fairer colouring and their piercing gazes, coming to face with relatives whom she did not know existed and now appeared to be the closest to her in the space of a day. Perhaps - grand-uncle Sayyed...

"Our younger cousin, the little Suhail, her brother Javad and his wife, Mahasti -"

The introductions passed in a blur, the names quickly forgotten as they were introduced.

"Jonathan and I dare not presume our trunks are after all in the hotel still, and we can't possibly-" She started out slowly, unsure.

"We do not take no for an answer," Najya Mahadeva insisted, smiling with the same wide smile as her brother did. "There is food for you - vegetables and fruits, or meats even; you may even spend the night here before you return to the hotel tomorrow or whenever you wish to."

"Old mum, we shall not refuse our hostess' hospitality, don't you agree?" Her brother looked at her archly, daring her counterargument.

"No argument from me, Jon." How could she not cave in when such an offer was so irresistible?

"Just how did you meet Najya again?" Evelyn Carnahan lounged luxuriously in the bath prepared for her, yelling out her question those who had ears to hear them.

"Ah, met her once again on the streets," her brother called out from the other side of the room, his voice somewhat unclear. "Do you realise just how decadent that sounds? I met her on the streets - not as if we were engaged in any improper..." he groped for a word, "um...enterprises."

"I shall not ask what you normally do on the streets, Jon," she replied dryly.

"I'm not all women and booze, Evy my love."

"Seriously, Jon."

"Aww, old mum! Where's your faith in me? Waitthese fruits are good! Have you wondered where they've bought all their culinary supplies? It's lavish enough to live the life of some Turkish Sultan -"

"It's for both of us, Jon. Please leave a portion of everything so I might, too, briefly experience that same decadence you are now savouring - O lords!" She stepped out of the bath. "A silk robe! They really know the meaning, nay, they live the definition of hospitality!"

"Get used to it Evy, we're now all family."

"Unashamed, aren't you?"

"I'd say you deserve it, after the fray in the Museum with Ardeth Bay; think of it as reward for all that week of waiting. Now that doesn't sound a mite bit too bad anymore, does it?"

"That was a clever reply, Jon. Unfortunately I think I will have to agree with you. It does seem well enough a payback to enjoy." She sighed.

"Why that sigh, sis?"

"Don't you find it odd that we are suddenly reconciled to family after a week?"

"Odd?"

"You know, we've been without relatives for so long, only to find that we've suddenly got a maternal side that we've so conveniently forgotten about, how you meet people, I meet others, and we're suddenly reunited"

"I'd call it a coincidence. A lucky one, for that matter," he affirmed.

"Have you been here before, Jon?" It was somewhat confusing to her, nonetheless.

"No, why?"

"What did Najya tell you when you met her today? Why don't you tell me a more detailed version? Starting from the time we both left the hotel, to the time you went into -"

"There's really nothing much to tell, sis. I'd be offended if you insinuated that I have some secret liaison somewhere, but well, my point is, that -"

"'Twas an entirely innocent question, my darling brother. Cairo is not a small place, and with the throngs of people who mill about, what is the probability of us meeting in the same house somewhere in a part of town we hardly venture into?"

"Evy, sometimes the amount of distrust that surfaces from you amazes me," Jonathan clucked his tongue in mock disapproval. "Maybe it is kinder if you told me now that one of us were indeed adopted; I promise no blame, a split of property down half exactly, a sense of relief and resignation on my tail."

"Alright Jon, you were the one. Forgive me for not revealing it earlier because I wished to spare your feelings."

"What?"

"The adopted one."

"Such a deadpan answer masks a terrible side that can only be found in you, Evy."

"I wouldn't speak too fast."

"I wouldn't speak too fast at all, Evy," he murmured his reply, the repeat of what she said, yet she knew he was no longer referring to the light-hearted banter.

"What happens tomorrow?"

"We take them up on their offer," he said simply.

"No, Jon. Seriously, once again."

"I meant that. A day at a time, or a night at a time." He replied cryptically, offering her fruit on a silver platter.

"It can't be that simple," she insisted. 

"Why not?


	9. In The Camp of The Other

A book of verse, underneath the bough,  
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread - and thou  
Beside me singing in the wilderness -  
Ah, wilderness were paradise enow!  
\- A Book of Verse, Omar Khayyam

Those hands, tapering into long fingers. Strong and able, gentle in their experience.

She could not yet see his face; it was impossibly shrouded still.

Evelyn Carnahan, powerless to stop that dream that brought ripe new heights to her, rendering great pleasure in fantasy where real life disallowed as she lay in the guest bed, in the house of Severige and his sister - it appeared almost vulgar that she, a foreigner, was prone to licentious dreaming in a remote and oh so comfortable bed, as though the revelation of her subconscious would perversely display itself in debauched splendour publicly.

It was Severige, so she thought from the flash of green, eyes that shuttered and winked, hooded as the rest of him continued to provoke her, he, who whispered flaming secrets in her ear, the unhurried and dazzling magnetism luring her to heights that shamed and agitated any living being.

It was dawn, she thought dimly, the rare moments when she struggled to rise to wakefulness, but also wanting to sink back into the fitful tossing that aroused her deeply.

Too vivid, too harsh were his hands on her skin, burning, branding her with their fiery light touches in places that made her shudder deeply and endlessly, setting her ablaze; she had to gasp as the tips of them caressed tentatively, as if yearning for her approval before they took a surer path upwards, and then downwards. There was such violent passion visible in the restraint that shook his frame ever so slightly; his face was nevertheless mightily shielded by the dense mist that moved with him each time he turned his head towards her.

But it was his face she wanted to touch and see, a face to put a name to, even if he was merely promising a fleeting tryst to slake repressed desires. The flash of green eyes changed to brown, and then back to green; Severige's face first appeared, then Ardeth's, and magically it was Ardeth who became the lean, complete figure who lay partially atop her in his delicious warmth, his mouth following the path that his fingers took, loudly calling the phoenix awake, harshly summoning the embers and passionless ashes to take life once more at his command.

And this time it was his eyes that glowed a rightful brilliant amber brown, his face a shimmer golden when she finally caught sight of it, and obediently she arose indeed to heed his call, springing to life with splendid and tremulous movements, writhing in vast spurts of pleasure that only he seemed to be able to give, simultaneously bringing both him and herself to fruition, chinks of silver clashing with sparks of friction, melding.

But she did not care anymore, if it was Ardeth or Severige who cried her name, winding her tightly, unnaturally as would a stringed instrument, slowing bursting at the seams, and she now did not know who was holding her, but in the circle of his arms she left his own need stir again and again, the building excitement feeding her own need, weeping his name -

"Ooof!"

She groaned, loud and long, waking Jonathan to a degree. He rolled over in his quilt at the other side of the room, murmured a soft 'shut up' and became unmoving once more.

"Heavens! The body reminds me of needs that I try to ignore in my waking hours," she muttered to herself, pushing her body arduously into a sitting position.

The hard knock on her head reminded her that it was the unforgiving floor that she had been partially laying atop, having rolled over bodily in her previous excitement, now dissipating into thin air so quickly that it seemed as though it had never existed. And in its place formed a deep disappointment that fantasy was not simply real enough to experience.

Evelyn Carnahan chose sleep once again, half praying that the dream would return, a sweet revisitation of his sensuality which held great power over her, pleasing and fleshly divine.

The sun hung high in the sky when she woke again, grateful for the fretless sleep the second round had given, yet unable to forget the wildness of it all, shocking and shaming herself with the tweakings of her subconscious, berating it as much as she could without inflicting unnecessary guilt.

A knock on the door, a sharp rap and it opened.

Jonathan was up, she presumed, judging from the mess of clothes strewn carelessly on his corner of the floor and from the unholy amount of cologne he'd splashed on himself.

"Miss Carnahan?" Seeing the timid serving girl's movements made her smile encouragingly, holding the tray that contained mouth-watering sustenance.

"O yes, thank you for the breakfast, umm...lunch. It's lonely in here, might I instead eat outside, or perhaps join my cousins?"

"Certainly Ma'am. She is outside, on the veranda."

It was definitely a well-furnished house, thickly insulated and heavily Ottomanishly influenced but never perfect as Islam demanded with its strategically placed wooden columns, screens and warm Persian carpets extravagantly draped where necessary, well-placed divans under elegant archways under a line of clay bricks.

"Sweet dreams, Evelyn?" Najya Mahadeva rose at the slightest sound of her approaching footsteps. "Is it your habit to rise after the sun has been working hard?" She asked wryly. "I beg your pardon. I am only curious to know my relatives better, how often can one say that one's relatives from England are long lost, and now found?"

You can never tell the extent of its sweetness until you dream it yourself.

"You are alone?" Evy asked.

"Not anymore," Najya smiled. "You haven't eaten. Please, your company will be a pleasure," she insisted. "I have had a few conversations with your interesting brother; perhaps he is like your father whom I do not know very well! But it's time for me to poke the sister to life and see how much of my cousin Rahiq she resembles."

"Where is Jonathan, if I might ask?"

Najya Savita Mahadeva laughed.

"I sent him out to buy fresh produce, tomatoes, beans, meats, since he did murmur that it was growing stuffy in the guest room. He will come back soon, with his hands full I believe."

"Ah, then perhaps he is bewitched only by women, obeying them freely as long as they are not his siblings."

"I am an old woman, Evelyn. I already lived before your brother screamed his first breath," Najya observed in great delight, clapping a hand over the handle of the chair. "We are not cousins of the same generation, I believe."

"Tell me more, Najya. This is all I wish to know - and you are perhaps the only one who can answer everything that I need to ask. Ardeth refuses to."

"Ardeth Bay?" She sounded startled.

"Oh, yes, the Medjai leader," Evy hastened to clarify. "I knew him during the time when Imhotep rose from Hamunaptra. We, Jonathan and I did not quite know of your existence then, well, we do not have much memories of our mother and her family" It was a feeling that always confounded her, stumbling easily when trying to speak with elegance, stumbling every more easily when she tried to apologise for it. And immediately after she felt herself wanting to turn a crimson red, when fragmented memories of her dream returned in a flood of whispers and sighs.

Najya waved it off dismissively.

"Egypt prefers to forget that time. Speaking of such can only bring tears to the eye."

"No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..I only merely meant to -"

"Ardeth Bay and his Medjai was indeed placed in great glory, although he did try to recede from the fame that Hamunaptra and the hidden secrets of the Pharaoh brought him," Najya Mahadeva nodded the affirmative. "News reports offering so many explanations of all the mysteries then. But these things never last."

"What do you mean?" She leaned forward, curious.

"I mean, Egypt is a country who also looks to the future for progress. The past revives itself in a few weeks, in the form of a cursed mummy, but we always have the past with us - the pyramids, Deir Al-Bahri, beautiful Abu Simbel. The kings are more immortalised than they thought they would be, their fears of immortality now put to rest. They are remembered more than they know."

It was a beatific explanation that Najya had given; it made sense, it sounded logical, yet, she could not stop accelerated heartbeat that came as she heard the thinly veiled patriotism evident in such words.

"Najya, actually, my intention was simply to -"

"...to find out what happened to your parents, leaving you and Jonathan orphans," she finished calmly. "Jonathan mentioned your parents' death in passing. It was a difficult time, no?"

"One learns the way of living again," she replied flatly.

"The hour is getting late, Evelyn. I wish to answer your questions, but maybe we can start on that when Yasser returns." She made the statement sound as if she asked for permission, smiling apologetically. "Please, do not think that I wish to delay answers as Ardeth Bay had. You probably do not know much of your mother and her family - let me speak of that."

"I suppose it is relevant," Evy conceded reluctantly.

"No one in our family was in any way glad when Rahiq married your father, Rohan; she was still young, and was maybe easily swayed by ideals. We grew up without lacking, you see, and that was most fortunate, when people died daily on the streets - that most of us gained the opportunity to receive an education from London. Rahiq was no different; she thought herself, as we did ourselves, belonging to a new generation of Arabs who believed in a modern world that a very exciting 20th century might bring for Egypt. Europe was in upheaval - what we saw on the streets - we could not believe that factories had brought so much progress; Germany was new in Europe, France was unhappy. But we were more disillusioned to realise that Westerners still had a completely different idea of superiority and inferiority. But the true test of our minds came when Rahiq announced her engagement to Rohan Carnahan."

"So the cause for Egypt and her independence is something you have decided to fight for?"

The astuteness that had come from Evy impressed her greatly.

"We can step back a little. How did you know such?" Rahiq prodded.

"Jonathan and I, well, it was Jonathan really, who stumbled on 2 short pieces of correspondences, which are, actually, the reasons that spurred us to return here," Evy admitted.

"Can you remember what was written? Or did you bring it here?"

"It was basically a letter that asked my mother to return to Egypt."

It was a precarious balance, between trusting a suddenly long lost and found family and telling all that she carried on herself this far.

"Yes. You see, it was difficult for Rahiq's parents, who were ill at that time to give their consent for her marriage to a Westerner, to an English man moreover! They had strongly felt that the English were only as robbers in the garb of the gentleman who wanted Egyptian treasures," she paused, seeing the indignance that grew on Evy's face.

"But..." She sputtered, not knowing how to respond, wondering if the new habit of speechlessness was in for keeps.

"You are half of both, Evelyn. And so is Jonathan. Let me finish my story however, if it will help you," Najya gave her a slight smile.

"Do go on. You mustn't mind me too much. Jon says that I wear changing emotions on my face as often as I change women's stockings."

But Najya's eyes were dark in her reminiscence; Evy's attempt at jesting had passed her by and like a dull sky, asleep on the edge of the abyss, those were eyes that hinted at shadows which Severige and Ardeth carried with them.

"We prided ourselves as students who could build a bridge between the great powers of the West and us, countries of the Ottoman Empire, countries that wanted badly, the influence of Western civilisation. Rahiq's engagement to Rohan Carnahan had hit us badly and made us wonder if we could truly call ourselves children of the world, under Western influence. They married, eventually, and stayed here for the early part of their married life, and then they returned to England, with you and Jonathan, before returning to Egypt once more after 7 years there."

It sounded so simple, like a romantic drama that wafted past her ears; she was hardly able to digest the fact that the people in the story were her parents.

"Was it -" They both turned, the trail of conversation forgotten when the door bolt lifted.

So the question drifted off, lost on her lips when Severige entered the house in a smooth, single step, smiling at her in greeting, before conversing shortly with his sister in Arabic.

"You rested well," he said simply; it was a statement as he turned back to her suddenly, the flash of green in his eyes cutting her through soul and spirit, and she fell inexorably, under the potent spell that his eyes and smiling gaze had unconsciously placed.

"Why, yes," she stuttered clumsily, wondering if she was indeed a disgrace to her own sex. For his presence brought back the erotic fog that rolled by her in the early hours of the morning, something she thought impossible since it was the sweltering middle of the day.

"Shall we sit inside instead?" He looked at her earnestly, regarding her in silence for a while, so much like their first meeting in the museum, where he had offered his hand for her to take.

"Gladly," was her only reply, taking his extended hand with great care diffused and with lesser distrust than she had the first time around.


	10. No

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.  
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars  
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,  
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth  
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;  
Morn came and went-and came, and brought no day,  
And men forgot their passions in the dread  
Of this their desolation; and all hearts  
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:  
\- Darkness, Lord Byron

No, it could not be. No, it was never such.

Not often was there time for regrets, and he allowed himself the luxury and pain of it now, lying on a cot, faceless and nameless among the many injured Medjai, gauging his own open wounds, the wounds that his brother had dealt him, the slighter wounds inflicted when he madly scuffled with O'Connell.

It was a 'no', the most unfortunate of replies that the fleeting silence brought to him from the heavens in the plague of all guilts, that Mejdan Bay should not have died, although it was his brother's own hand that had drove the sword into himself with that defiant move. Savagely, he tried thinking instead, of the reverse. Still, the thought of his brother as his murderer instead turned his insides weak.

They had carried Mejdan's body at Ardeth's insistence the way they proudly carried their own, wrapping it simply with cloth, returning the dignity, posthumously, to Mejdan Bay, before gently lowering it into the ground. And then he had ordered them to tend to the rest, as he dug the hard earth with his fingers, refusing help, until his brother was laid snugly to rest. Using his hands once more, down on his knees to sweep the dust back into the grave, he deliberately left it unmarked, before plunging his scimitar into the disturbed sand, bowing his head heavily over his dead.

He now whispered the same prayer that he had earlier murmured over his brother.

_O Allah! Grant him protection, and have mercy on him, and keep him in good condition, and pardon him, and make his entertainment honourable, and expand his place of entering, and wash him with water and snow and hail and clean him of faults as the white cloth is cleansed of dross._

_Oh brother, may you find a greater state of happiness in paradise._

The wounds, physical and emotional were fresh, the emotional ones less likely to heal well.

There was a slight night breeze; so slight that only one at rest could feel it. He was one of the few who felt it then, lifting the hair on his neck gently, tugging and twirling, flirting with the airborne sand, with his nose that smelt the unique desert sand. Nature initiated, and his response was natural, smiling briefly at the familiarity of being wounded in the company of soldiers who pottered around in easy camaraderie.

Ardeth Bay winked his eyes shut, surprised by the guttural and sharp sting of tears at that point, that all too familiar sting that he jealously kept to himself, unwilling - unable to let others see, too proud to be pitied, too weak to allow the release of emotions. They could not be blinked away this time; the torrential rage and despair flooded furiously, his body tight and barely convulsing, no sound escaping from his face that his hands had tightly covered.

That wail of abandonment, cried eloquently out in silence, had only manifested as a tiny sigh that escaped his lips, only the desert and its inhospitable folded arms watching.

_Ah, merciful Allah, if you would remove this cup from me, am I now alone to weep, with no comforter near?_

That tedious, dull throbbing was left, Ardeth Bay was discovering when the tears had been shed. The tears that had reassured him hat his heart was flesh swiftly faded and the ache, devoid of sympathy, that followed transformed it into stone, more so now. The ache that he intuitively knew could stay for a long time.

And then he struggled, clenching his fists, straining his throat and muscles, trying to recapture that episode that fleetingly brushed him.

She had come to him, drenched with dark passion, thirst to be slaked, thirsty for all she saw. He had opened his arms eagerly; his hunger had matched hers pulse for pulse, breath for breath, the twinge that refused to desert him until her very own soul was demanded and surrendered. That titillating young wife of his, that spirited Lena. And in her face he thought he saw a young child emerge as it would have gradually emerged from her womb, the father that he would have become, smiling, until that tender loving moment exploded, shards of regret immediately occupying the delusional space where happiness had briefly sat.

Their marriage prayer, so different from the one he uttered over Mejdan, joyous.

_O people! Be careful of your duty to your Lord, Who created you from a single being and of the same created its mate; and spread from these two many men and women; and be careful of your duty to Allah by whom you demand one of another your rights and to the ties of relationship; surely Allah watches over you._

But that remembrance of joy now came in the form of bitterness, that the goodness which was supposed to unite the couple had only flashed itself briefly before disappearing, leaving him to chase that preciousness in a sandstorm, only to return a friend of darkness and a foe of light, wild-eyed, mad with grief. His wife, Lena Shirin, whose death had devastated him.

He must have fallen asleep, part of him waggled and nudged. And his dead wife returned as an apparition, this time distant and unapproachable, her pale lips moving, as one did when death was not the end, but the beginning.

Ardeth Bay felt terror, and at a blink of his mind's eye he vanquished her into nothingness once more, until his racing heartbeat roused him into wakefulness.

It was still night; barely a few minutes must have passed and he turned once again, into the deep world where grief, memories and fantasies merged, an amalgam of imprisonment, astonished once more that he was captured by forces stronger than he thought he was able to fight.

And soon after Lena - all hope had died, yet he was unaware of its death, trudging through hour after hour, day after day, and mindlessly, month after month before something sparked anew, like the belated knowledge of his heir, that had lived and died that infinitely short span of time, merging into the sea of forgetfulness before its own heartbeat was heard by human ears.

_Merciful Allah, I am only a man, whose breaking point is near._

That disquietude that had followed the news of his heir's unborn death sometimes sparked dispassion, sometimes wrenching pain; the vacillation of his reactions alarmed himself even.

Until the gladness and trepidation in his heart was awakened, when he saw Evelyn Carnahan, lost in Egypt once more, although she professed otherwise.

_Lena, forgive me, I did try, to hold true to your memory._

That cloud had lifted, just a bit when she smiled in that innocence that was not quite so wide-eyed any longer, that concealed hard-edge in her now privately bringing him satisfaction. Would she have been such had she married O'Connell? Would she have grown into a different woman otherwise? She was a shadow that hung in the periphery, a worthy distraction if he did not take care, moving him to feebleness.

Could the duty to the Medjai be of utmost importance? Ardeth Bay liked to have thought so, but in the blatant admission that he was merely a man, not unlike his warriors, separated only because of birthright, broke certain chains that had weighed and restricted so heavily.

The firelight flickered, and the movement of booted feet under sand sounded relaxed, slow.

"The brooding chief," came that taunt in the now-familiar American accent. "You paint a perfect picture of the lonesome and unsmiling chief, who rescues the girl at the end of the story."

O'Connell, that 'son of a gun' who was too valuable to lose in any circumstance.

"There...Ardeth - you're giving me that dark look, the one that sweeps women away, but fails to intimidate me."

He never failed to bring that grudging smile, even though it was slight and meagre.

"How may I help you, O'Connell? Perhaps you can tell me something that will cheer the spirits of everyone."

"Demanding of you, Ardeth Bay."

"You would expect less of a Medjai chief?"

A small smile that Rick O'Connell had difficulty hiding emerged.

"Should have seen that one coming eh?" Something was on his tongue, a piece of news that he wished to let on, yet he sensed that Ardeth was not open to anything but gloom and the time to -

"There are many others, capable of chieftainship." His long time friend was speaking again, melancholy, quiet. Perhaps more capable than him, yet unknown, because they were never allowed the responsibility.

"But they also lack that privilege of testing themselves." Rick was succinct, open, staring.

No, that the fickle forces which rose against him, had morphed, swarmed and gathered, against each other, against the enemy, and against him. The self-pity was great, for that moment, and trying to hold on to it sapped his energy more than if he would let it loose. But pity - that pity for self, was in itself a triumphant feeling, the knowledge that it was a weapon he could use against others, and also against himself, for without it, it was vulnerable and all be damned should he find himself there once more.

"O'Connell, sometimes you surprise me with your depth." Ardeth clapped him lightly on the shoulder, shaking his head slightly in amazement.

"I'm not the all guns, women and drink, prisons...kind of guy, if you know what I mean."

"Believe me, I am still getting used to it."

Rick O'Connell hesitated and plunged ahead.

"Ardeth. I've got to tell you something."

"So you bring good news?"

"Uh-huh."

"And you did think that I was in no shape to receive your joy? That I would fall over in jealousy that such joy is unattainable for me?"

"Um..well, since you put it that way, Ardeth."

"Is there really no difference between an ordinary warrior and a chieftain save for his birthright? Am I that small a man?" He sighed deeply. "Perhaps I really am. But I will rejoice with you, even though there is darkness at the back of my mind, ever clouding me. Now tell me."

"I am going to be a father, Ardeth. That was Taqiyyah's news, nothing more!" The words could no longer be contained, the joy that suffused on Rick's face spread, and seeing it made him ache and envy deeper, for the loss of his own made it ever more poignant. But it showed on his face but a brief instant, swept aside by a genuine rising happiness, resigning himself that such happiness, if not for himself as yet, was still evident in and available to others dear to him.

And then he looked at O'Connell's beaming face, seeing that he was terrified and blissful all at once, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder this time around.

"It is a comfort to me at least, that Allah grants moments of great celebration in such times. Your kin will grow up in a hard world, and in here you must find space and time to rejoice. Congratulations, O'Connell, you've done extremely well." They shook hands, hard. "And your lovely wife, I wish her the best of health and the heartiest experience of motherhood."

Immediately after he turned away, leaving O'Connell basking in his temporarily blithe daze, deserting his cot and pulled his mask back in place, unable to hide the anguish that contorted his features, that surely hurt more than the physical blows he had endured, lest anyone stare at his face and recognise the weakness in their leader.

He stumbled on; hot tears flowing freely of its own accord, staining the thin mask, blurring his vision until his faithful mount appeared in sight and he climbed atop it with the greatest ease, spurring it on blindly towards the cliffs that protected the Medjai camp, the place of savage refuge that offered tortured soul where the pathetic offering of healing were its merely own jagged, dangerous edges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Prayer/Service for the Dead  
> A Divine service is held over the dead body of every Muslim, young or old, even of infants who have lived only for a few minutes or seconds. When a person dies, the body is washed with soap or some other disinfectant and cleansed of all impurities which may be due to disease. In washing the dead body, the parts which are washed in wudzu are taken first, and then the whole body is washed. It is then wrapped in one or more white sheets, and scent is also added. In the case of martyrs, or persons slain in battle, the washing and wrapping in white cloth is dispensed with. The dead body is then placed on a bier or, if necessary, in a coffin, and carried on the shoulders to its last resting-place as a mark of respect; though the carrying of the body by any other means is not prohibited. The Holy Prophet stood up when he saw the bier of a Jew pass by. This he did to show respect to the dead, and then enjoined his followers to stand up as a mark of respect when a bier passed by, whether it was that of a Muslim or a non-Muslim.
> 
> ***Marriage Sermon  
> According to the Islamic law marriage is a sacred contract between the husband and the wife; it is expressly called a covenant in the Holy Qur'an (4:21). A contract can only be made by the consent of the two contracting parties and it is necessary that the husband and the wife should "agree among themselves in a lawful manner" (2:232). Hence the first requisite of marriage is that each party should satisfy itself as to the desirability of choosing the other as a partner in life.


	11. Without number

O Sweet everlasting Voices, be still;  
Go to the guards of the heavenly fold  
And bid them wander obeying your will,  
Flame under flame, till Time be no more;  
Have you not heard that our hearts are old,  
That you call in birds, in wind on the hill,  
In shaken boughs, in tide on the shore?  
O sweet everlasting Voices, be still.  
\- O Sweet Everlasting Voices, William Butler Yeats

Rick O'Connell thanked the heavens as they emptied their watery treasures heavily around the Medjai tents, for her warm luxuriance that he had grown so intimately acquainted even within that short time they had married. He boldly proclaimed to be no religious saint, and surprised himself the most of all when he found himself a wife who prayed deeply, believing in the unseen as naturally as breathing came to man. But he thought all might approve; she suited him well, becoming that precocious balance to that recklessness that he embodied, the fear and reverence of God that was inserted in his life through her. Dared he say it - blessed the day be he had seen Evelyn Carnahan off on the ship to England, unseen by her standing concealed among the throng of apathetic Egyptians, still a broken man as the ship sailed, little knowing that it was the same hour his life would turn irrevocably.

Taqiyyah O'Connell turned at the rustling and smiled at that foreign husband of hers, marvelling briefly at his fair hair and light eyes, that pure honeyed colouring she hoped their children would carry.

"These are your medications. Use all you need and then give them freely, Rick." 

He looked in to her keen eyes, that slightly mellowed mannerism ins her movements, beautifully alive, and in the firelight and she met his gaze calmly, as he imagined Evelyn Carnahan would have become, in the nights that allowed him wingless fantasies and dreams that for once, he had not hungered after. That ordinary rhythm of her movement - so ordinary that not even the most observant of men would notice, accentuated her to him only, attuning him to it, drawing and alluring. Rick O'Connell capitulated like a lost man, that eyes that were clouded with pain and defeat had engraved themselves in his mind, and then fell into his heart. The politics of passion had never been and will never be complicated to him, the very way this woman tore all defences down and saw the frightened, uncertain core trembling beneath the bluster.

He took her gently by the elbow, until they stood facing each other, the symmetry of their faces framed in the firelight for eternity and a second, before he lowered his cheek to hers for the most fleeting of kisses.

"Thank you, Taqiyyah." There was more he wanted to say, words that he always found himself unable to express verbally, choosing instead to talk with his weaponry and show of courage, praying for an unspoken understanding and acceptance of such expression by those closest to him.

"You are my husband - my joy in life, and yes, you are welcome. Allah bless the day you found the Medjai injured and stayed."

"How could I not?" He answered feelingly. "Those bastards were -"

"Rick! The child hears, I swear to the Almighty!"

He dropped his arms to her sides, thumbs moving over the puckered flesh over her ribs that healed cruelly in ridges, remembering all that they represented in her life, the cruel scimitar slash and the rough scrape of a bullet that marked her body for all time, scars that refused to mark themselves physically but also mentally, the torturing lions that gnawed slowly at her in sleep. How he wished that the wildness of danger would be tamed and the ferocity of memories would ebb even in the harshness of political instability, simply for the sake of her peace of mind. And the unborn child's. But they both knew that child would be dragged, just as the generation before him was dragged, dancing through mad flames of fire, moulded into the dry, brown desert world and shaped by tough violence.

Taqiyyah O'Connell read the expression in her husband's face.

"You fear for the child, do you not? That I, a female Medjai will nevertheless join battle when necessary."

He gazed at her, suddenly afraid of dropping into that abyss of loss, where all that he could do there was to look up and gaze helpless, at the slight slit, that endless sky.

"Taqiyyah, I would ask that -"

She shook her head, bejewelled not by precious stones, but by the soft flickers of firelight that seemed to hurl itself at her with the slightest of moves.

"Lena Shirin had done so. Women will continue to do so for generations to come. But I will not be so foolish to do as such, not now. Such an act only defiles the woman and disregards strongly the life that she carries within. Sometimes it seems that her punishment is not only her own life for the life of the child's, but also the life of Ardeth. Look at our chief, Rick - he stands strong when I see him, but my eyes can fail, even though he fights relentlessly, and we shout our victory before the war is won. But he is empty inside, and that man truly sees no happiness before him."

"Yes, my dear, I will speak to our dashing strong figure clothed in majestic black. Just for company." He raised an eyebrow questioningly, seeking her approval, surprised to see a shake of her head.

"You, my Western man, need a refreshment in the arts of pleasing a woman, especially one called a wife and also a mother-to-be."

Rick O'Connell waggled a finger and cocked an eyebrow experimentally at her, and they laughed, loving the briefly shared camaraderie before she turned serious again, mirth disintegrating as fast as the political tide changed in Egypt.

That life was led to its fullest concerned her, in that time when no man knew his true lifespan, where their fates were now subject to both the eroding nature of the desert and of the stress of civil war.

"Have you also witnessed much, lives lost?"

"Without number," he replied sombrely, before stepping out of the tent once again, holding her healing balms as well as the tender ministrations that he had just received.

*************************

"And the sky, black, and its luscious silver, without number. That desert sky, clean and unpolluted." He stretched the width of his arms with a dramatic flair, causing that peal of laughter to erupt once more.

Evelyn Carnahan smiled widely, pleased that Severige had a whimsical aspect glued onto his character, chastened that he had felt comfortable enough to share with her.

"The day I see stars without number above London Bridge, oh - bless that day, Evy!"

"While I am surprised, Severige, well, respectful also, of the fact that you have been trying to present your esteem of Shakespeare so touchingly in the past hour, I am - oh, appalled, by that bad enactment of foppish stage acting, made worse by the terribly mismatched shoes that you struggled to wear when you -"

"Uh huh - that spoilsport she is, that old mum of mine," out called a voice slightly nasal and groggy voice, followed by a staggering body in the form of Jonathan Carnahan out onto the patio where everyone lay in decadent positions, admiring the cool night sky. "Past two in the morning, and she is uptight as she is in that ol' Elizabethan rug corset of hers, well, behavioural I mean," he emphasised deeply, "As for that corset, well, someone will just have to peek."

"Heh, Jon, you don't ruffle me in the slightest." The wine that the Carnahan siblings had consumed loosened them both, and the laughter that flowed free, in turn loosened Yasser and Najya Savita Mahadeva.

Jonathan Carnahan laughed at nothing much in particular, pleased with the way the evening had turned out, even more pleased that the Mahadevas had enough good sense to offer their English guests fine wine and silken cushions. He felt verbally free, as if the carnage of words that he let loose would tonight hurt no one in particular, its invincibility stemming from the sheer senselessness of his sentences.

"Without number, my dear folks, that is the true state of uncountability! Much, not many! Much is infinitely heavier."

His sister eyed him, alarmed at that internally gushing dam and wondered at the loose screw that was supposed to have held in tightly in place, yet was never fixed. Perhaps it was time, that she personally undertook that task.

"Jon," Evy began suspiciously, "You are seriously not making sense. Well, there have been occasions when you say utter nonsense of course - but that's well, of course besides the point, it's just that you are hammered once more!"

"Oh my bloodyhammered, you say, my sis?" He flopped down beside Najya and smiled beguilingly. "Look into my eyes cousin, and tell me if I am a safe man."

"A dangerous man announces that he is safe, and the safe man would like people to think he is dangerous, so they keep away from what is a really a coward." She spoke succinctly into his face, before bursting out in great laughter.

A dangerous man announces that he is safefood for thought, Evy mused sagely, under the influence of world-renowned wine and giddiness.

"When you have poured sufficient cheap, market-bought perfume oil on my leather-clothed feet, my dear brother, you might hence like to wipe the excess off with your short hair," she said dryly.

"That governess in Evy - look at 'er, must say she makes a good disciplinarian, eh Severige? We should have dancing girls to rile her further. As that governess..." Jonathan stretched out his legs luxuriantly, keeping his glass of wine close to his chest.

"You were a governess in that sense, Evy?" Najya asked with great interest. "A woman also of great learning then."

"Governing young minds," Jon chipped in triumphantly, earning another glare from his sister. "Or more precisely put, she...mmhf -"

A hand clapped over his mouth like a vacuum.

"That perfect teacher I am. My brother praises me entirely too much and overestimates my talent in such a hysterical state." She smiled evilly.

"Hey, Ol' Mum!"

"Maybe it is time, we all governed our own bodies into bed," Severige smiled with ease, folding up the mats and laying the cushions aside, watching his sister support Jon strongly on her shoulder back into the house, shaking his head in great amusement.

"That brother of yours, Evy, is fairly entertaining."

Evelyn Carnahan watched them, musing.

"Entertaining enough, perhaps, to be fortunately ensnared by a travelling circus so that he may perform live when drunk and be paid, as a passing note? Or perhaps, revise the existing dictionary because he makes up words when he is drunk, problem being that he will be too shot to remember when he finally recovers from languishing in his hangover?"

He laughed, that full grin of his appearing, and had her smiling in response when her heart leapt. Her fist tightened unconsciously around the glass she held, needing the comforting and mundane gestures of normal life, lifting that glass of wine to her lips.

"You are funny, my dear, unlike that Victorian governess he called you. No one that uptight is ever that comic with that sharp wit."

"I must thank you again, Severige. No one has ever shown us immediate kindness as guests, but you and Najya have exceeded yourselves."

"Family," he merely said that word, reminding her of all the connection and reconnections that was now bewilderingly once again part of her life. "Nothing good withheld."

"Thank you once again, for that great feast you called a modest dinner, and for the rooms and hospitality you have been showing" She rose with great effort from the lovely large cushion that was by now indented, putting it away reluctantly.

"Are you intending to thank me every quarter of the day?" He queried smilingly and pulled her up gingerly from her reclining position.

"Yes, I believe it is my fifth time?"

"Sixth."

"Why then, Evelyn, do you worry that we, the Egyptian side of your family, begin our relationships with rifts?" He asked her now, quietly, those piercing eyes needful enough for her to look away.

"But I did not do -"

"The number of times you have thanked me tells me of your fear and unspoken worry," Severige replied steadily.

"I...well, Severige..."

He became bolder than he thought he would be on this particular night, imbibed not with liquor as Jonathan Carnahan was but with that extraordinary English lady whom he never thought he would see, under the cover of wine and the excuse of fantasy, bringing his hand to rest lightly on her shoulder, squeezing slightly. There were urgent words he wanted to let loose especially then when there was a great possibility all might be forgotten and more easily forgiven when formal behaviour seemed at present non-existent, yet he held back, hesitating.

"Trust us - trust me."

But she looked at him only confused, bleary and nearly cross-eyed, and smiled briefly before patting his hand, exiting the patio softly. He had asked for her trust and she did not know what she needed to do.

"Good night, Severige."

"Good night, Evelyn," he called back louder than she had spoken that closing line, halted in his tidying movements, wearing that momentary vacant look before he left for his own room.

"You have risen so," he swallowed hard and murmured helplessly, as if unwilling to concede his heart too fast, "in our esteem. Najya's and mine."

He thought back to the apparently senseless words that Jonathan had liberally spewed in that foolish, drunken state. Without number, that true state of uncountability. Looking at the sky as if for affirmation in the countless stars, he nodded to himself briefly, pursing his lips as if deep in thought. Uncountable.


	12. A startling revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some historical background and re-cap for those who think they will get lost:
> 
> Egypt was slotted into the British Empire during the First World War. The Wafd party, as I have mentioned many times throughout this story, is fiercely nationalistic, and anti-colonialist, founded before the First World War by a man named Sa'ad Zaghloul whose impetus for forming this party originated from the rejection of his demand for complete autonomy for Egypt. He was eventually arrested and deported to Malta in 1918, anti-British riots sprouting in the wake of his deportation. 
> 
> In 1922, (before The Mummy even) Britain ended the protectorate, and recognised Egypt's independence, yet maintained control over essential government institutions and the Suez Canal. 
> 
> From 1922 onwards, Egypt would face a rather turbulent unrest, and we see different opinions of colonialism arising in this transition period which you soon find out, embodied in Severige and Ardeth, and also how the workings of politics are more often than not, very ugly.

These are the characteristics of the world: confide not therefore in it, nor incline to it; for it will betray him who dependeth upon it, and who in his affairs relieth upon it. Fall not in its snares, nor cling to its skirts.  
\- A Thousand and One Nights, the Story of the City of Brass

Evelyn Carnahan was beginning to feel like a caged bird; it was the only imagery that she found suitable for herself as she whimsically listed the animals in succession that she thought matched her personality. Imagination be damned! The bird and the cage seemed to do well with each other as the one of the oldest metaphor of the world, she thought, a cliché of freedom and captivity overplayed but nevertheless the easiest to use. Yet in that month of self-imposed imprisonment, her thoughts were no less clearer, no less diminished in turmoil than the day Severige had sat her down and inundated her and Jonathan with the gruesome details of the sins of the past generations.

She had received all she had wished for, and more, and the sudden urge to erase it all was tremendously strong, intense. The grandiose dream that she had loftily carried to Egypt was now crushing reality she held in her hands that urged her to reconsider the goodwill previously forged among the Medjai.

Ardeth Bay, Rick O'Connell, they were, after this singular episode, now hooded figures with whom she now found difficulty in identifying.

_Let me tell you the story_ , Severige had said, gently and she had been moved by the genteel kindness he had rushed to show her, his undaunting readiness to shred her maddening state of ignorance in the revelation of truth was indeed for her a cry of relief from the assailing apprehension.

Evelyn Carnahan had leaned on plush cushions, rapt, over their abandoned cups of sweet tea, involuntarily stiffening, tensing over parts she had scarcely believed had happened, yet taking comfort in the slightest nuances of daily life so easily overlooked - Jonathan's lazy slouch, the small, smile that sometimes graced Najya Mahadeva's lips -

_The full story of your father still eludes me,_ he had admitted candidly, _but I will tell you all that the Wafd is, and as much as I can of the Medjai._

He had torn the thin veil that divided them as she had requested- the veil of knowledge and ignorance, but it now seemed, in retrospect, a foolish act, an impetuous mistake to have asked for information way beyond her ability to manage them.

Severige's narration was nothing short of extraordinary; it was like watching a hunter and its prey, the hunter fat with the knowledge of a cornered prey, the prey scuttling about in its last-ditch attempts of survival.

"Your father had not known the turn that his life was to take when he married your mother; I believed he was a good husband, and he wanted to follow his wife back to Egypt when she received a letter stating that her uncle Sayyed, your Grand-Uncle Sayyed, Evelyn, was critically ill. You see, Rahiq Mahadeva belonged to a family of nationalists, strongly affiliated with the Wafd, as what we are." He had glanced meaningfully at his sister.

"I think your father took up office with the British Embassy, but I could not know for sure. Your parents returned to Egypt in 1917, and found that the streets of Egypt were frequently filled with petty skirmishes that many people were tired of. Our leader Zaghloul was exiled to Malta in 1918, and it seemed that the Wafd would have fallen apart, if not for Ishaq Bay."

Severige had paused in his speech, as if the mere recollection brought him deep pain. But curiosity and dread had burned in her widened eyes; the unlikely connection of the Medjai and the Wafd incredulous even to her ears.

"Your face is truly an open book, Evy," Najya had smiled sympathetically. "Listen carefully to what we are going to say next, for it will truly challenge all that you think were facts."

Jonathan had fiddled with bric-a-brac, before stilling, and perked up once more. He grabbed the nearest untouched cup of tea and gulped with distaste. Serious conversations were hardly his suit.

"Ishaq Bay was then the Chief of the Medjai. He too, was weary of the Great War, and his strong sentiments regarding European governance led him to pledge his allegiance to the Wafd, and in doing so, he brought with him the commanders of the 12 tribes and their bravery and triumphs became ours. He had 2 sons, Ardeth Bay and the younger brother, Mejdan Bay. The younger was naturally ambitious because he did not have his elder brother's inheritance of the tribes and the leadership that was to fall to him, but Mejdan Bay was also brilliant, a shrewd tactician and a competitive warrior."

She sighed. Severige stood up.

"Evelyn, I must apologise. This conversation is not doing good for any of us."

But he was undone by the beseeching look in her eyes. 

"Do not stop, please, for my sake. Where does my father come in then?"

"As all organisations needed to compromise, the Medjai and the Wafd were no different. We were not without our differences, in fact, you can say that our differences were very vast - a tribe so steeped in the glory of the past, and a party so preoccupied with the present and future."

Severige continued, relentlessly, but his look begged for her understanding, for her sympathy to lean towards them.

"It was difficult to really say if the Medjai was ever an integrated part of the Wafd and I do not know if you can ever call the Wafd and the Medjai a good partnership, however, there were some slips that suggested otherwise, where mishandling of fund within the party could be vaguely traced tointernal dealings. I never doubted Ishaq Bay's war sentiment, but his secretive nature led him to make a few enemies within the Wafd itself. It was most unfortunate that your father was one of them - Ishaq Bay by then, had a network of connections that made use of the most convenient pawn available - Rohan Carnahan, for he had good knowledge of both British politics as well as the workings of the Wafd through his wife. But the help that Rohan Carnahan had given was not without a price - imagine, no reward but a price to pay! But we all knew that everyone paid for peace. Your father had known a lot, maybe too much in fact, and the way that Ishaq Bay kept his dealings silent (even from us) was simply to kill Rohan Carnahan."

Evelyn paled in shock, Jonathan stunned into silence, the force of his flatly quiet narrative hitting them surely like live canons did.

"We found out too late, I am sorry, but it is easy to assume that the disappearance of a man in times like these usually means death, which what Ishaq Bay had claimed Ishaq Bay and your mother died in the Burning of Alexandria, in 1922 and only then people talked, about memories of a brief scuffle and execution in the night. I am so sorry, Evelyn, I do not know how to make it easier for you to bear. Delivering news of death surely curses the messenger as it does the receiver. Rahiq was quiet about her husband's disappearance; she did not fret as much as I thought she would."

A helpless shrug of the shoulders replaced the loss of speech. Truly, they could not do much more to add to or take away all that had happened. How could the actions of men who were intoxicated by freedom and power be defended?

She remembered asking for a reprieve, and they were more than willing to grant her one. The belated mourn of a father and mother she hardly knew was strangely distant, and the refuge that Jonathan offered was too muffled to pierce the disturbed soul that could only, at that point, speak the vocabulary of dreams.

"Ardeth Bay assumed his position as chief of the Medjai. But his ideals differed from his father's, and even his own brother's. He withdrew the Medjai from the Wafd in 1923, but the years of solidarity between the Wafd and the Medjai had strengthened bonds, and this move spilt the Medjai. Half stayed with him, to resume their old duties of guarding the Pharaoh's stones and a past that is dead, but the other loyal half now remains with us, and they fight for a future that is living."

"Pardon," an uncharacteristically serious Jonathan had inquired, "What happens now? Where does it leave you, the Wafd, or those black-clad people?" 

Had she not been distressed, she would have snorted at the impertinence that laced almost every sentence that he stringed.

"Ardeth Bay has since withdrawn the Medjai from the Wafd, but demands the full return of his tribes. He is not content with a diminished tribe that now guards the desert, and arranges for street skirmishes as you saw, to fulfil these demands. He asks for the rest of his followers, but how are we to stop what they believe, and where they choose to stand?"

The house was quiet; Severige and Najya had recognised the belated mourning had subtly replaced the earlier festive mood and had left the Carnahan siblings to their own devices. Yet the younger sibling was not as irrepressible as her brother; his daily romps through the town resumed merely after a sombre week, while his sister had withdrawn slightly; the days that passed had given her a different set to her mouth, troubled-creased eyes and a different temperance that they could not yet quite place. It was as if a tearing down of a wall occurred internally and the thrill of another barrier rebuilt, with sharper top spikes, yet prone still to crumbling, in its early stages.

She had lived a month with the knowledge that bore down heavily, shaken by the injustice of war that cheapened lives and the price of peace that was almost not payable, taking comfort in the slight mutterings that had worried Jonathan, wishing that he had not unearthed the notes when they still led that insulated lives they did. They had accepted that their parents were unlikely to return to them back then; why and how should it be different now? How did such dull, blissful knowledge suddenly turn into a swift awakening of scarlet sentiments, sentiments that were previously impalpable and insubstantial?

"What do we do now, Jonathan?" She had asked her brother when they were finally alone.

He had not hesitated when he answered.

"Let us return home, Evy. They need to fight this themselves. The war has been over, for us. It was over when Mother and Father died. Let it stay buried."

But she thought it impossible, and the stirring demons of anger became the authority from which she wanted to heed - the need to retaliate was indeed too great to ignoreagainst Rick O' Connell, against Ardeth Bay and his accursed tribe, to punish someone for the untimely deaths of her parents, to twist Jonathan senseless for showing her the correspondences back home.

Evelyn Carnahan shook her head, and that strangely dispassionate calm settled, but that curious sensation, that ghastly yet partial intent remained and could not be overlooked, only dormant, waiting merely in the shadows, for the flames to be fanned, for a stronghold to scramble up to.

The noisy night streets would probably do her goodmaybe even an unexpected visit to Lyanka who never seemed to sleep, wizened as she was, to soak up that odd, earthy ambience that her house had always exuded.

It was a good time to grab that black shawl that hung invitingly over the dressing table.

A soft knock on the door made her look up, freezing her actions.

Najya Mahadeva stood at the threshold, serene and calm as she ever was, her olive complexion rich by the lights in the night.

"Evelyn, would you care to come out for dinner? We have a few guests. They would like to meet you and perhaps..." She paused, finding the right words, "Perhaps certain actions could be taken to help you with your grief."


	13. Turn of the tide

The crowd at the Mahadeva household was disconcerting, and the sudden company overwhelming, and their conversation deeply drenched in passion, entrenched in a reasoning that was at first, beyond her. But their tones rose and fell with the breaths that were collectively taken, and spirit of the times in which they spoke about caught flames as the words left their lipsshe breathed in their infectious fumes and grew heady with the golden political pitches that soon caused souls to soar to its particular strain of music.

_The fruit is being picked, it is ripening! The day is raging, as it has never raged since the days of the Pharaoh._

They talked themselves into exhaustion and into zealous fits of rage and passion; nobody was left unaffected, Evelyn Carnahan included.

_Wrong; it is the dedication to the text and the light of the Qu'ran that outshines the need to preserve beautiful monuments, more important than our attachment to architecture. The mosques that you see, are living; the pyramids or museums perhaps appeal more to the Western eyes, a glorious but dead past that you people of the West seem to revere more than what you see now._

Egypt was looted, they had said, plundered and raped - by the English, they had spatand she had felt most perplexed, for it was such that she was nevertheless, half-English...perhaps even much more than she had cared to admit, proudly wanting to exhibit the Egyptian blood in her because it granted her more liberties than she had cared to think about.

Surely the Wafd had known that she was only partly Egyptian; the English part of what they despised nevertheless was a part of her that could not be deniedyet Severige and Najya had welcomed Jonathan and her wholeheartedly to their abode; they had provided for her on the terms that she was fundamentally related to them and hence, their fierce cause to liberate their country. They had accepted that she was not of pure Egyptian blood and that perhaps her convictions ran equally shallow in a person of mixed blood. Of course, she had never given an indication of allegiance, which they had hoped rather than assumed, automatically belonged to the Mahadevas -to the Wafd.

_Our hands have been tied with this dual system and which man shall serve two masters? Is there an urge to dislike such? Miss Carnahan, you are an intelligent woman. Will you not consider and think for yourself, that our natural and proper reaction is to terminate this._

Their fevered and lengthy discourse at the dining table had renewed vigour in her, and stirred in her a sudden need to either flee or perish in martyrdom with these people, and she was never one who wanted to back down from a reckless challenge, even if the odds were the most uncertain yet. 

His rhetoric was inspiring; she was however unsure, torn between the poles of family loyalty and the own primal need to hide where it was safe; the instinct for self-protection was never stronger in moments when her confidence was shaken by the verbose conviction found in their speech.

_Why do you delude yourself about your ancestry?_

But the effervescent burst in her heart was the fullest realisation of the meaning of _Egyptinisation_ that all revolutionaries hoped for, sudden and earth shattering for some, scorned by others who comfortably lived in their mute lives, routine and mundane.

_Will you join the rank of despoilers, or will you stay unmoving, or will you fight for the same cause that your mother was fired to do?_

The reckless manner in which she had thrown in her cards with the Wafd that night nearly deliriously drunk on the success of the talks and swayed by their persuasive entreaties, the night was not to end as yet. In burgeoning ecstasy she had wandered about the house in a haze tinged with the reddish hue of imminent blood-shed and laughter, immersed in the scent of impulse, only to walk into a still figure that stood against the doorway of her room.

_Dulce Et Decorum Est._

"Jonathan!" Her hand on her chest signalled her shock.

Soft laughter wafted past her ears as she belated realised her mistake.

"Severige," she laughed with him. "I'm truly sorry - I thought Jon had returned."

Evelyn Carnahan had thought he was distant throughout the earlier conversation; that curious aloofness had returned slightly and she had never known him anything else other than the epitome of affability and to bear witness to such behaviour that was so out of sync with his character definitely was a cause for concern.

But within the space of a heartbeat, he had lifted her hand and squeezed it warmly, his eyes thanking her for halting the path of indecision that had lain underneath her footsteps since the time she had found out about her father.

The hesitance across his face contrasted with her radiant one, and the thickening tension was sliced by the initiation on his part when he bent his head and kissed her lips with a gentleness that would have turned feral had she not restrained herself from fully responding, but she stayed smilingly in his embrace, arms resting lightly on his shoulders.

"Forgive me, Evelyn," he murmured uncertainly against her. "I could see no greater way of showing my gratitude -"

"You have given me an ample demonstration, I think," she teased reflectively. "If this is your usual method of showing gratitude, then I can hardly imagine the queue of ladies who wait to pay homage!"

Severige shook his head ruefully. She now seemed made of pure fire, sparked into an ardent cause that was bent on cleansing and destruction, pure and simple, a thousand times better.

"It is no beggarly labour when you fight for something that you desire." This, spoken quietly by him, gave her no other way of interpreting this heavily charged statement, and she knew in that blink of the eye he referred not to the political situation at hand.

Desire - she had never felt its delectable pull so tangibly; Evelyn Carnahan had never chosen to view this side of Severige, yet her choice was rendered moot at the exceptional display of this sensuality that he seldom allowed to fully surface.

"Never," she agreed, pulling away and putting distance between them even though he wanted to her to stay in the circle of his arms, but was also afraid of being burnt in the right blaze of that glory in her which he could very nearly see with his naked eye, so very admired. 

Evelyn Carnahan was a very beautiful woman, he thought, but it irked him nonetheless that he had nearly allowed his desires to run amok; she was a willing participant now with the Wafd, and this willingness was not yet extended to his person.

The intoxication of the hour had languished, its magic now fading, and it had left Evy with a cooling steel of nerve, deep in the recesses of her mind, thoughts were clicked into place, sliding into black and white, purging several emotions that she had thought to dear to release. She moaned slightly at the drain of these feelings; Severige saw a most unlikely yet extraordinary purge that was found in her eyes, the slide from softness and confusion to an icy hardness difficult to miss, a look that he found he liked.

It would not do, for both of them to succumb to raw emotion, despite the temptation that lurked and threatened to pounce in the single slip of a facial or verbal expression.

Severige swore softly to himself; the placid look on his face slid into place and in the reluctant flight to safe ground, he became once again the man Evy was familiar with, desire now shielded behind the barricades of cordiality.

"Actually, Evy," he began, "There is a rather urgent matter at hand and I think you do have the opportunity to be instrumental in it. I didcome to talk to you about this, even if you do not think so, but became distracted -"

A wolfish grin was appearing at the corner of her lips; there was no suppressing the excess that ran out of her that night, making neither effort to slow the anticipatory tip of her head upwards nor the deep, shaking breath inhaled.

"There has been a rather extensive looting in Deir-al Bahri, and our contacts have confirmed that it is extensive enough to require the interference of the Medjaiand their chief. You did hear earlier, that Ardeth Bay is an important man to usnegotiations are of utmost importance, you see."

"But what possibly can I do -?"

"Ardeth Bay trusts you," he replied flatly. "I believe he has not quite forgotten the role that you have played 3 years ago when Imhotep was raised - sending him back to his grave has surely bought you a place of favour within the Medjai."

"You assume that he will trust me easily, riding out on a horse with a white flag is hardly an idea that will be brought to fruition," She pointed out.

"I think you misunderstand. The Medjai are nomadic folk; they move around easily, hidden by the vast desert. Ardeth Bay can be an elusive man to find, but I pleaded with the Wafd that you should be ourforerunner, that you might perhaps be able to be this mediator when talks have all but failed," Severige qualified frankly. "It would do no good should the Wafd and its factions appear at the doorstep of the Medjai camp and be refused once again for another round of talks. Ardeth Bay and his remaining tribes however, are very valuable. But when both sides refuse a compromise..."

Severige left his sentence deliberately unfinished, watching her face closely.

"If I'm to understand you correctly, this assignment requires me to travel to Deir al-Bahri -"

He interrupted her almost immediately.

"No, Deir al- Bahri is now dead land. By this time, the Medjai would have sealed the tomb securely; they journey towards Cairo, I believe; it is here that they will re-gather to count their losses and purchase more supplies. The route is not as difficult as you think it is. At first glance it appears as if no visible path is trodden, but it is an ancient one that has been unchanged for centuries" At this he slowly pulled an aged map, hand-drawn, from the pocket of his waistcoat, gingerly unfolding from its limp edges.

She nodded at his urgently meted-out instructions, poring over the map, searing it into memory, suddenly anxious for herself and the possible repercussions of this action that she did not yet want to think about.

"What happens after? What happens when I fail, or when I succeed?" Evy questioned finally.

"You do not have to worry," he mused softly, somewhat vaguely. "I daresay you will be successful. You will not be captured - surely a friend of the Medjai deserves a better welcome. Ardeth Bay does not yet know that you hold the truth of the past generation."

But he shook his head, as if nervous.

"Should anything happen, something else will have to be worked out."

It was reassurance enough for Evelyn Carnahan.

"Deliver your best, Evy," he urged persuasively, adamant that she should not fail, so that the carefully crafted plans would not fall apart. "You have heard the cause for Egypt and I see from your face that you now feel it as strongly as we do."

With that lingering look and a hasty kiss on her cheek, he left her to her hurried preparations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Dulce Et Decorum Est = From Wilfred Owen's famous war poem, the phrase that originated from Horace, meaning 'It is sweet and fitting to die for one's Fatherland'.
> 
> * Deir al-Bahri -The burial ground and royal tomb of Queen Nerfertiti.
> 
> A disclaimer here -  
> The opinions expressed below are only one side (and a small fraction!) of the whole argument concerning Nationalism, of which I'll play devil's advocate later by pitting these views against other seemingly contradictory ones. But it's all in the name of fun, really. No viewpoint is superior to any other and it is not my wish to elevate Ardeth's stand above the ideology of the Wafd (hey, don't we all know if he's delicious enough) because I think both parties are privy to their own stands, warped as their arguments might turn out to be for you after reading them. Feelings of loyalty can only be explained only to an extent rationally, and the deep seated emotions below I've tried to capture offer little explanation as to why they form the base of behaviour, but it's also for the same reason we celebrate humanity and yes, the reason why we also celebrate the absurdity of acting the way we think we should act. In short, the Wafd is as right as Ardeth in fiercely seizing every opportunity to proclaim Egyptian Independence, just as Ardeth is as right as the Wafd in wanting the Medjai to stay on the original course, and busy themselves with the ancients instead. It is just a matter of looking at an issue that has many facets to it.


	14. Black Betrayal

For a moment it seemed as if she were a mere traveller who wandered through the cold of the nocturnal desert. Evelyn Carnahan relished greatly this fleeting anonymity that dwarfed her in the unfeeling barrenness, the smallness and insignificance of the self that thankfully dragged her mind away from the task at hand.

Something within itched; it was a festering sore to which no solution could yet be found for its cure and a puzzle that had not quite yet fallen into place, despite the satisfactory explanations she had received.

She hoped that Jonathan was safe -his leisure wanderings in the city that seemed to seek nothing but pleasure surely put him in that ignorant bliss that would hopefully shelter his hide.

The trot of the horse was silent save for her occasional shift atop it; it was not long before she would find herself on the route that joined Cairo to Deir al-Bahri. The whimsicality of the moment had to be taken advantage of, she decided. Readying her tongue, Evelyn Carnahan cried out invocations she thought she had discarded and forgotten from her days as the librarian at the Museum of Antiquities, ancient prayers that had rotted safely in the tombs of the Kings now took shape and revived and with great effort that paralleled her recitations, grew wings once more as they soared toward the open, starry sky, not noticing the different pairs of eyes that watched her gradual progress through the sand.

Black-clad figures in the distance, with the soft whines of their horses. From her vantage atop the cliff, it appeared as if they plodded along irrevocably, frozen in what looked like a certain pedantic obstinacy -

Evy wished that she were an unfettered student of the stars; the order of the ancients had certainly included the feared worship of the mysteriously lit night sky, an instituted worship borne of generations' wonder and thirst for the supernatural.

A swath of black cloth crossed her eyes, and the peaceful vigils of the near silent desert night broke when a lone, black-clad rider masked to his eyes stood before her.

"Ardeth!"

"Evelyn," he acknowledged solemnly and there were questions that he had deliberately left unasked, waiting instead for her offering, choosing to revert to formalities. "It has been a while. I pray to the most High that you have been well...since the last time." He recalled the battle that they had found themselves on the fringe of and grimaced in remembrance.

"How did you know I was here? How did you -" She gestured. "How did you see me from afar?"

He laughed shortly. "We watch. Do the sleeping Pharaohs not require sharp eyes and a keen hunting sense for their protection? Sometimes however we fail. I heard your recitation of the ancient texts and prayers...beautiful."

"I am not able to stay away," Evy told him seriously - there was no half-truths that she shielded, no lie built upon yet that would surely pour a poisoned guilt on her. "Egypt, did I not tell you, is in my blood."

"I know. There is great evidence of such," he admitted knowingly, perhaps even wryly in the heavily accented English that was uniquely his, but the awkward moment had broken and he smiled, pulling down wearily the cloth that covered his face.

He finally asked, "Is that why you are here? Surely you know of the outrage that has been dealt to Deir al- Bahri"

"Ardeth," she said in measured tones, "I have been staying with some relations of my mother." His face remained expressionless, yet his demeanour suddenly cooler. "They belong to the Wafd - and I cannot begin to say how much has transpired in the course of the weeks -" She did not finish all that she had been commissioned to do when his hand stopped her.

Ardeth Bay frowned with deep lines, as the unfailing instinct within him cried out a strident warning which he had learned to heed in spite of how in place a situation seemed - there seemed something rotten, a foulness that spreads, now permeating the air. He was still weak, much sicker than he thought, suffering from a particularly virulent strain that brought fevered deliriums that had struck merely a week ago, where awareness had all but been constrained to his cot and the sliding between alternate realities and worried whispers.

There were chants, prayers, lulling and the sound of wailing, pushing and piercing through a state that hovered between the realm of angels and the pits of agony; he had finally awakened with the Qu-ran by his side and the Ankh around his neck -who had placed it upon him was immaterial; it was the unmistakable sign that he almost stepped into paradise.

Right now, Ardeth halted her speech, his frail condition masked by forbidding black robes; it was the only reason he sat solitary atop the cliff watching his men tie up loose ends at the royal enclosure only to discover the sign of another presence nearby.

Evelyn Carnahan.

"Come with me."

He turned around and she felt the heavy tug of her horse's reins that brought both horses - his midnight black stallion and her ordinary brown mare - away from the lip of the cliff and alongside each other in an abruptly faster gallop that she was unaccustomed to and that he revelled in, but the sudden gunshot that reverberated through the stillness and sudden, savage collapse of her horse on its own legs had flung her rolling, pressed upon the soft sand that smeared itself on her face, in her eyes and on her clothes.

Unmoving, stunned, she resisted the unyielding arms that tried to force her to her feet, and the loud, spitting voice that cursed fiercely in Arabic when she did not. Whipping around, all that Evelyn Carnahan faced was a pair of merciless grey eyes rendered hideous by long-standing hardness. A figure clad fully in white just as Ardeth Bay was clad in black -

Her horse now lay a mangled, bloodied mess - but there were other white-clad riders who seemed conceived in darkness, who trampled the horse that had to be dead by now, encircling the Medjai chief in a slowly constricting circle some distance away - even a man skilfully armed with a scimitar could pray merely for a miracle.

Ardeth registered merely the rushing wind and then the fearful sensation of captivity as his hunters bore down on him - it spoke of all things ill-dimly he realised that Evy had fallen behind -

He was too far from the trail that his men were taking, nearly a mile above the ground for them to rush to him - with a flicker of movement in the wrist, the scimitar was immediately in his hands as he turned his horse deftly around to face the oncoming riders but this turn had cost him the much-needed speed; the ghoulish predators still rode, terrifyingly near. The illness had yet to leave him - its ghost was wading through his body and his halting breath now came in gasps, a tumble downwards into certain oblivion, strength flowing out of him as quickly as it had briefly reappeared, a taunt that he knew was his undoing.

Bewildered, Evy struggled and twisted from her captor, taking off in a sprint in Ardeth Bay's direction when the hurtful pressure on her arms lifted temporarily, a run within eternity as it had felt when it was merely a few excruciating seconds.

"Ardeth!"

They were engaged in a scuffle that consisted of awkward moves and out-flung arms, and now that she neared them, she was uncertain how to act in this unexpected outrage -but a voice called to her, and she turned to see Severige hurrying towards her, relaxing immediately under his reassuring presence, yet turning back in horror to see that Ardeth Bay had fallen noiselessly from his perch atop the horse. Strangely silent, he felt around him the different, pulsating rhythms of drawn breaths.

In the enveloping darkness, action and reaction were reduced to mere sensory movements created from jangled instinct and flagging intuition. Ardeth opened his arms, spread-eagle upon the hard ground, whispering a silent prayer of gratitude for the brief, sharp pain and the anaesthetic unconsciousness it brought, not feeling, not knowing the hurried motions of his looming captors thereafter, carrying his form towards an unknown destination in that twinkling of the eye.

There were running figures and madly galloping horses, distortedly comic and slow in the sudden disorder; the Medjai had seen the collapse of their chief and had scattered below the cliff face, charging towards them taking a hidden, upward route, yet Evy knew, that they had already lost this round.

"Search for Ardeth!"

Faint, hoarse commands from below reached her ears, frantic hollers that spurred the simultaneous draw of scimitars.

Silvery squeals of metal, hair-raising in their yet bloodless wail.

"Evy!" Dimly, she heard her name called, but it came from a source behind her - Severige!

Hands had reached for her again, firmly but gentler this time around, turning her around, his body shielding her eyes, hurrying her into a vehicle concealed behind craggy cliffs, yet her hungry eyes were sightless when there was no sense that could be registered. She was highly confused, to say the least - she had come to Ardeth, under the instructions of Severige, yet it could be no mistake that the riders who had surrounded Ardeth were of the Wafd.

She heard riders approach from all sides, a mixed army of white and black that broke the strange, enduring silence as sure as the crack of dawn appeared, drowning in rapturous battles cries.

The vehicle that Evy found herself thrust into sputtered to life and plunged into a rough, rocking motion, veering a sharp right away from the frenzy of horses and swords; it was not empty as she thought it had been. The hands - Severige's hands - that were on her had lifted at some point in time without her realisation and now she was again alone, sprawled along its tattered leather seats, the passenger compartment boarded up so she caught no sight of the driver.

"The chief is nowhere to be found!" Faintly, there were repeated shouts, although receding.

Oh God, she needed to ask questions she needed clarifications, she needed to fling herself awake, away from this dreamlike state that was now turning into a nightmare, trapped in a sea of bewilderment and perpetual perplexity in which she could not swim!

There was a faint scurry of desert creatures, the slinking back of the nocturnals into holes and borrows that heralded the crowning of dawn by the first fingers of emerging sunlight.

Perhaps lost battles and futile fights were raised to the sky in everlasting mourns, Severige mused, now miles away as he watched the car that carried Evelyn Carnahan back to the Mahadeva residence fading into distance. The desert was quiet once again, the only hint of disturbance were dark, transient drops of blood that stained the ground- he was now the solitary figure that apparently walked its treacherous paths aimlessly.

The Medjai were weak, spineless, without their chief; they had disappeared as fast as they had appeared, their fearsome visages crumpling earning another drawback. Severige allowed himself a smile - Ardeth Bay now lay in Wafd captivity.

There was trust - but just not enough, to be placed in Evelyn Carnahan. She had been instrumental in determining that Ardeth Bay was indeed at Deir al-Bahri; he was initially doubtful of the degree to which her presence might be a magnet for Ardeth Bay, or whether she could sing songs of a lark sweetly enough to pour poison in his ear. Such doubt had driven him to act recklessly, folding backwards upon his original plan, and layering this sudden attack above Evy's advance and yet, the night's events had displayed a wild success beyond his imagination.

Evelyn Carnahan - he admitted now, freely to himself, was a face that neither he nor Ardeth Bay could resist, their joint weakness, their only capitulation.

They both wanted her badly; they wanted to fully possess her extraordinary capacities and the lively spirit that bloomed within. She would be demanding of answers and full explanations, he thought, when she calmed down; he hoped that Najya would be able to placate the fiery passion that had been fanned into blazing flames.

He could only hope, that her allegiance to her family and now to the Wafd remained strong, and perhaps in time, a full acceptance of him would as well, come to pass. Until then, he could be contentto wait, a predatory wait in the shadows of duplicity and politics from which he watched and yearned keenly, from afar. She needed to be wooed with flowers of ever increasing knowledge, kept sated with adventure, and made content with the touch of one who breathed Egypt.

The day was done, Severige nodded to himself in grim satisfaction; there did not seem to be anything that was, at present, beyond his power and reach.

Invincibility - ah, its heady, invigorating scent!


	15. A daring plan

I am he whose soul is tormented; heaven has given sorrow to him  
\- Sayat Nova, 17th Century Armenian Poet, from The Colour of Pomegranates

They were darts of repressed memories or perhaps they were dreams, bittersweet, that engaged themselves in warfare, battling the state he found himself in now, so strong that they tried to sweep away this reality with the force of fantasy.

It was easier, and far more comforting to retreat, the same way a wounded animal licked its lacerated limbs in private, into the revolving visions of Lena Shirin and Ishaq Bayafter the cruel tantalising glimpse of Paradise he now wished to be wholly sucked therein, and forget

He did not know what was real any longer; pain had existed in both realms and he could neither physically nor mentally be free of them. Unruly emotions and physical exhaustion owned his mind fully, unable to process the staggering happenings of the past days and the undying horror of the past year.

Ardeth Bay fell in and out of consciousness, shackled, bathed in the sweat that had momentarily broken his fever, awash with trembling breaths that assured him the tail of the lingering illness was near. Yet with each successive exhalation his breathing grew strained again, suffused with the eruption of a fiery pain that originated from the base of the spine, stretching towards his shoulders and chest. He found himself always in darkness, merely registering familiar outlines - the rough ground that had deep grooves forcibly carved into them, the lightless room, its dank walls, the numerous shapes of whips that hung on its opposite door.

Unadulterated, the primal, rotten scent of fear hung in the air, a fetid spectre that betrayed the number of deaths that happened in this frightful and lonesome captivity.

He was lying face forward; the crawl to his feet was a lengthy stagger, for he slipped again and again. But he finally stood upright after expending that effort, his medieval-like bonds thick around his wrists that extended into loops of chains that had been hammered into the adjacent walls.

_Oh merciful Allah, be my help!_

The prayer circled him, words clanging mightily in his mind, as if needing to repeatedly suffuse into him with its pungent, spiritual essence a burgeoning hope, but then he slouched again; even the Almighty seemed far, a man balanced upon the jagged periphery of religious oblivion and apathy.

The grave pound of footsteps.

The laboured opening of a heavy, steel door after its bolts were slid open noisily.

A sliver of pure, white light. So bright that it pierced his eyes that were barely even open and Ardeth Bay flinched.

Voices of a rough, uneducated timbre, and another onebone-chilling and familiar.

"He lives, sir." The deep voice resounded, unnaturally deafening in the enclosed space.

"Of course he does - an important man of Egypt, as proof of how far the mighty fall. My instructions were clear, were they not? He is to live."

The slam of heavy iron doors rattled the walls, plunging all into unwelcoming darkness, save for the menacing shadow that advanced, a shadow that took the unmistakable, burly shape of a large man, clad in black as he was, grimly facing him.

No words were necessary, no taunts needed, only movement and pitiless action.

The crack of the whip brought him to his knees.

It was the position of a master and slave; tears of humiliation and rage mingled with beads of sweat that dampened his face, his tattooed cheeks, and slid down his ruined torso. He heard the coarse jangle of chains that bound him to them intimately, moving accordingly as he swayed from the blows.

Their sound was the unmusical toll of bells, the requiem of any captive.

Over and over, the hissing snake meandered through the stagnant air, dancing boldly in a unerring tune with his punisher's flamboyant display of strength, biting his back, his chest, his shoulders with its great sting, opening new wounds, carving deeper old ones.

He lost count of the number of times of its descent; with each crack the ground opened its arms to him in invitation, until he retched heavily, droplets of blood that gathered into pools, then ran rivulets on the uneven ground. Blindly, Ardeth stumbled, breath sucked out of him, fingers reaching into the grooves, the uneven surface of the ground, realising in the overwhelming fog of tears that the uneven, crisscrossing grooves were made by disconsolate, clawing fingernailspeople who screamed in pain, tearing, digging their way in any direction, as if anchoring their prints on the ground anchored them in redemption as they cried their last

The whipwith shuttered eyes he realised that it had stopped its shrill cry upon back and he lifted his head slightly as a futile attempt to piece together his shredded dignity yet it disappeared as quickly as it had raised its miniscule head, the stretched silence now filled with his stifled sobs.

_Oh Allah..._

It was on the tip of his lips - _Stop!_

That was an effective, staccato word that he knew would bring him reprieve and his captor unadulterated, malicious triumph; deep within the battle began, and raged - the dwindling will, his meagre strength lodged under the abrasive burden of strain, twisting in yet another fight.

His lips parted, mouthing a broken plea for divine release, but it was nothing more than an interrupted whisper of a prayer, the tail end of which released itself in violent, hoarse screams when he felt the rapid rush of salt water hurled onto his wounds.

Blackness welcomed him, a seemingly eternal, aphrodisiacal embrace.

He awoke again, and fell into hellish cycles of consciousness, unaware of the states that he drifted between; the ruthless crack of the whip was never far away, the torturous waterfall of salt never far behind.

*******************

Evelyn Carnahan was awake; Severige thought he heard her paces on the floorboards of the upper rooms, her mutterings which he smiled faintly at.

He ascended the steps slowly, knocking on her door softly and upon her acquiescence, stepped past the threshold.

"Tell me, Severige," she began warily, "tell me all that I've been fed with aren't simplyfalse utterances" She paced in apprehension. "I can't even find words for these atrocitiessweet words that mask your underlying motives!"

She moved towards him, reaching for the door, as if needing to gain distance, perspective that would only be granted to her outside his presence.

"You would call our beliefs strange?" He accused, suddenly angry at her retreat. "You, who merely a few days ago felt more than a slight twinge of inspiration when you sat with us at dinner?"

"Your powers of persuasion are indeed stellar, Severige, and the same can be said for your men," Evy spat cynically, whirling around to face him. "I will not mince words. Where is Ardeth Bay?"

He sighed.

She demanded reassurance, and he would give it to her, even though it meant gilding his words with sugary diplomacy, by withdrawing inward, his stance deflated and passive, his facial expression deliberately bland, a coy balance to her rants.

"Ardeth Bay is housed safely with one of our council members."

"What of the Medjai then?"

"The Medjai are scattered, or have presumably returned to their nomadic ways," he waved his hand dismissively. "They are only formidable when their chief is with them."

She watched him, scrutinising his eyes, his candidly open countenance, wanting to see the man whom she had seen when she had first met him most extraordinarily at the Museum, when he had pulled her away to safety from the gunfire that littered the streets.

His physical appearance was breathtaking, but the glimpses of flinty hardness now seemed etched there permanently, lending him an ugliness that emanated from his eyes. Had she really not seen that before?

"Surely you engineered the second plan, Severige!" It was her wounded pride that now spoke, a chagrin born out of her first failed mission; that much she put in words, not daring to allow the extent of her mortification show. "That plan which you had all along but didn't think to speak to me of!"

Anger was always an excellent façade.

"I cannot deny that - Evy, forgive me if it appears as though I have little trust in you," he tried again calmly, splaying out his palms in a conciliatory gesture. "It was a bad move on my part - in my haste and excitement to ensure a secure connection with the Medjai, I resorted to means as such." It was his eyes that challenged her, their emerald depths conveying to her the gravity of his mission, the lost cause of the past generations that he tried to right.

Evy nodded, outwardly accepting of his explanation; she thought she saw a quiet sigh of relief from him. He hid something, that much she was sure of, the delicate whiff of the proverbial rat and her intensifying curiosity an uneasy clash of discordant chords.

"Now come," he commanded gently, his hands touching her cheek lightly. "You require air, and a bit of noise. Najya and I will accompany you into the city. We will sit down for a meal and then both of you may look around for as long as you wish. I have yet another appointment with the council later."

They stood, the three of them, in front of the bustling streets a while later, before the Museum of Antiquities, the conspicuously missing Jonathan who still disappeared from the early morning till the late night nowhere to be found among the thronging crowd.

How ironic, she thought, that they found themselves at the building where it all began; the quest for parental knowledge that had knotted her deeper in than she had bargained for.

The midday meal had passed without incident, Severige politely excusing himself, leaving her with Najya who sauntered steadily amidst the chaos of the scene, picking out figs and fruits for their next meal.

It was now or never, as Evy watched Severige's rapidly retreating figure - the most breathlessly daring feat she wanted to abandon herself with recklessness to, fashioned itself with cunning clarity within her.

"Najya, would you mind if I took my time to walk around? I thought I just saw an obscure set of Fourteenth Dynasty carvings that might be a good display set for somefriends," she fumbled slightly. Good Lord, it was difficult to feign sweet enthusiasm and false interest, when all nerve endings stood with great tension - when they tingled with the anticipation of the upcoming chase.

A nod and a smile were the replies that she could have hoped for, and in the same second Evy impatiently thrust her way through the seething crowd, earning loudly muttered curses from the roadside vendors for her clumsy paces. She hurtled past on unsteady feet, nearly tripping over the baskets of dried fruits, overturning someone's prized tray of grain, unaware of a figure negligently leaning against an adjacent wall with a hat pulled low over his face.

He lifted his hat, grateful for the cream colour of his shirt and scruffy looking pants that shaded him unto obscurity, frowning as she ducked under the rainbow of fabric bales, unrelenting in her pursuit of that shadowy man who was quickly fading from view.

She jogged lightly now, sparing no effort to keep the figure she was shadowing in sight.

He dreaded her progress, each step into whispering danger; he wondered if her object of scrutiny would suddenly whirl around and catch sight of her.

The unending noise from the bustle of the street irritated him; did they not just passed the same huffing faces, the same unruly crowd red with the afternoon heat? There was an alarming and peculiar pattern of regularity that passed before his eyes until he realised that he was moving in squares, led on a roundabout route that led nowhere but merely to the back of the Museum of Antiquities, along a narrowly disused lane which housed several huts.

He moved as fast as he could, becoming her shadow just as she shadowed someone in front, three figures that moved according to their own purposes, bound by the ticking of the clock.


	16. In haste

Sei in dieser Nacht aus Übermaß  
Zauberkraft am Kreuzweg deiner Sinne,  
ihrer seltsamen Begegnung Sinn.

Be in this night of a thousand excesses,  
magic power at the crossroads of your senses,  
the meaning of their rare encounter.  
-Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus

She could not afford to lose sight of him, no, not now; a tingling sense of urgency had grown so exponentially that it now surely mirrored the pounding of her heart.

What games are you playing, Severige? What cards have you dealt yourself? How many rounds have you won, how many players destroyed? Evy wondered, peeking around a corner, seeing his hurriedly disappearing form that slid itself easily through a side door of the Museum of Antiquities.

A mere thirteen seconds thereafter, she followed, silently clicking the door closed. The museum was strangely quiet, a welcome pleasure from the lingering humidity. They had entered a darkened corner of the ancient Sumerian exhibits, the door cleverly and partially hidden by an abandoned, dusty drapery.

Made of shadow, he blended seamlessly into the smattering clumps of the chirpy tourists, lightly shouldering his way past pillars, keeping curiously close to the walls, fingering the heavy wainscoting absently. Sparing a quick cursory glance upwards, he moved down another door and down an old spiral stairwell.

An old storage room perhaps, in the disused basements of the museum?

She stood by the doorway, peering down the stairwell with great frustration, for what lay beyond her sight.

Voices...there were voices. Evy heard disembodied, angry voicesthey spoke in Arabic, flowing, guttural words of anger.

"...kept alive, you fool!"

"...for being weaker than I thought he was -"

She furrowed her brow, lost in a cornucopia of confusion. The ability to hear mere wafting snippets of conversation that took place below strained her nerves to snapping, yet enticed strongly and swayed over by the disturbing instinct that pieces of the puzzle have had yet to fall into place.

The abrupt slam of a heavy door made her shrink deeper into whatever shadows permitted by the doorway and the surrounding pillars.

Severige emerged from the stairwell, slightly ruffled, bent under the fresh weight of meting out cruelty, disappearing onward; she saw him now, from the top of the stairwell, hidden by the advantage given her higher position, listening carefully to his receding footsteps.

She trod down the exact path he took, peering downwards past the half-open doorway, taking a step in the direction of the stairs. Its mournful creak reminded her of the need for stealth.

"Water..."

The dismal whisper of the dying, the helpless, floated past her heightened auditory sense, a feeble plea on broken wings that never took flight.

A lone guard stood, disgruntled, outside the heavily barricaded door, her last hurdle to leap over into hell.

It was impossible to cross the threshold, she reflected, unless she downed the sentinel and incapacitated him in a miraculous feat, something, which looked near impossible if she judged by his sheer physical size and forbidding expression.

Then again, perhaps not. There was always the oldest trick in the book which, if performed convincingly.

A deep breath, and a momentary closing of her eyes to steel her courage, Evy descended the steps gingerly, bringing her hands to fan her neck as she feigned surprise.

"Oh, good afternoon!" she laughed gaily, greeting the suspicious guard cordially with widened eyes. "I think I must have taken a wrong turn while walking the numerous hallways of this museum! It is rather large don't you thinkI particularly enjoyed the Sumerian exhibit that led me down herewell, a girl always longs for some adventure and oh well, it looks like I'm not going to find it anywhere close!"

 _Theatrical, Evy, think theatrical,_ she instructed herself hotly, releasing a barrage of words now, not caring that they barely made sense.

"Ah, you look like someone who might know something," she trilled and winked conspiratorially, before placing the back of a hand to her forehead. "Oh good gracious, I feel that the temperature has positively soared ever since I stepped in this museum! Would you happen to know the fastest possible way to get to the foyer of this museum? You see, I don't quite have any more desire to look at the dizzyingly number of displays anymore!"

"Madam," he replied in halting English, seemingly pleased with her infectious mood and pointed in the same direction that Severige had disappeared in. "You are not very lost. Follow this path."

It was not as easy as she had anticipated; method-acting was not something that she particularly excelled in, given the excruciating circumstance she found herself in - there was no time to lose; she ignored her rising panic - Severige might return!

"Could you show me the way?" She entreated immediately, smiling, inwardly cringing at the renewed pump of adrenaline through her veins. "Oh, you don't have come all the way with me, until I walk into something familiar at least and can find my own footing once more?"

She noticed his hesitation, the hurried glances at the barricaded door and the almost imperceptible nod of acquiescence, after he reassured himself that a mere 5-minute accompaniment of a lost female tourist would not distract him from his main task.

"It is this way, Madam," he answered her stiffly, with narrowed eyes, before striding in front of her.

"Thank you so much sir; you have my gratitude indeed...oh, I'm from England, you know and I find Egypt completely fascinating! What better place than a museum to see history come alive!"

She filled the sullen silence with inane and clichéd talk, chattering mindlessly as an empty chattel would, hurrying to keep up with him...noticing sharply that they were indeed approaching the foyer of the museum; they were soon going to walk past the ancient warfare and armoury exhibit which brought them into full view of everyoneit was now, or never.

A pitiful whimper escaped her lips as she sank toward the floor clutching her stomach, positioning herself strategically beside a heavy sarcophagus surrounded by its canopic jars; her beseeching wail had caused him to whirl around in surprise.

He stumbled, face foreword when he leant down to help her up, several canopic jars smashing through his skull in rapid succession.

She was dimly aware that she breathed heavily now.

There was no time to lose. That thought resounded through her mind stubbornly as a mantra would, and she grabbed the half-exposed, thick bunch of keys from his trouser-pocket, retracing their steps to the obscure door where contact was first made with the dying.

"Water..."

There it was again, the ragged, fledgling whisper unto salvation that sounded like a death-knell to the selected few who heard, the perplexing and dramatic constriction of the outside world to a keyhole.

Curiosity propelled her forward; the creak of the heavy steel door sounded suddenly loud to her ears when it gave reluctantly beneath the force of her hands, gasping in unbending horror at the sight before her.

A filthy prisoner lay sprawled on uneven ground, his blood-soaked brow and sweat-streaked body a consequence of the upholding of his ideals.

Evelyn Carnahan dropped to the floor, her own knees weak, aghast to witness the lost glory of the Medjai chief, and the mad, cruel evolution of the political struggle that he had been trapped in, physically reduced to the deplorable state of a condemned prisoner.

He only cried out for water and nothing else, dullness and the lack of recognition in his opened eyes.

"Ardeth!" She whispered harshly, crawling towards him, heedless of her soiled clothes, her fingers gauchely knotting themselves in the jangling keys, suddenly overcome by the colossal outburst of weeping and sorrow for this man who had fought the battle for Egypt's resurrected glory, and had, up to this point, lost.

She now cried as he did before, for his own redemption from the brink of death, dragging him, with the torrential drip of her tears, away from the clutches of Anubis and the insistent intrusion of Horus, fleeing from their accusations, invoking a humane protest against his Allah.

Water...

She burned to give him the ancient life-giving liquid, but had no water skin with her.

The tears had blurred her eyes - she did not feel the loosened grip of the keys from her fingers, but there was another presence that had walked into this dreary spot, a presence that had laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently.

"Evy! You must get up," she felt herself hoisted up insistently, turning, open-mouthed, into the frowning face of Jonathan Carnahan. "There is not much time! Cut his bonds, and get out of here!"

"Jon! But how did you...yet I thought you..." she laughed, trying to hug him until he asphyxiated from the tremendous squeeze.

"Explanations later, my dear sister! I am most appalled at your method of giving someone the boot; you took his keys, but left his poor unconscious form on the floor!" He took the keys from her hands in a smooth motion and talked as if he was merely purchasing a commodity from the streets of Cairo, easily loosing Ardeth Bay from his shackles.

"Oh God."

"Evy, have you little faith in your poor brother?" He asked smugly. "Surely you thought that I would have a greater sense to cover your tracks, messy as they are and exceedingly difficult to brush over."

"Jon, I don't know what to say. There have been so many things -" She could not say more, bending over the still form of Ardeth Bay instead, passing her hand over his ravaged shoulders tenderly.

"Evy," He stooped down where she kneeled over Ardeth, and wiped her tear-stained face sheepishly with his bare hands, staining them slightly with the soot of the ground before gawking at his own clumsiness. "I do believe I have more of the entire picture than you do but now is not the time. Bring him outside, by the back way you came in. there will be a car there. He will drive you to Lyanka's. Hold Ardeth there, until I send you news."

"He is not able to walk, I think," she despaired quietly, imploring. She needed his vigour now, to add to hers, to add to what she had already lost.

"Then you must support him," Jonathan hoisted Ardeth up with great difficulty, draping the warrior's limp arm over her shoulder, placing her arm firmly around his waist.

He watched them painfully and slowly stumble past the doorway, towards the back of the museum. Satisfied with the albeit sluggish progress they were making, he threw the bunch of keys in the air and caught them deftly in midair as they fell, muttering calculated choice words before moving outside to drag the fallen guard's body into it, locking it securely behind him.

He hoped she succeeded; he hoped Ardeth Bay would recover under the bizarre but effective Gypsy ministrations of Lyanka; finally, he hoped to God that they would be on the first ship that sailed in the coming month, back to London. Ardeth Bay's rescue had appeared like a simple, picturesque boat-ride down the Nile in the calmest weather; surely it would not be as simple as it all seemed, at least for now - as fickle as the fine day that would unpredictably turn wrathful.

It had been all too easy for him, to become a dandy who disappeared into the world of pleasure-seeking that lasting from the early hours of the morning into the late hours of the night, yet it had all changed one day when he had encountered Rick O'Connell in the streets one day with his wife; he had somehow made the fatal leap into Medjai territory and their activities when he had tumbled into a deep discussion of political stirrings with Rick in the half-drunken state of his, when he had learned much more than he knew he wanted to know, sobering immediately at the reeling implications of what he had just absorbed.

He had known of the hazardous consorting that Evy had done with Severige, the thin string on which she balanced herself.

They were playing a dangerous game, more dangerously terrible than he cared to admit, but it was never him to give any more concern than needed to the odds and the risks; he needed to finish the game - needed to win back the security of the lives that he and Evy had led back in England in the final spin of the Russian roulette. But many demanded their own rights to the game; perhaps it was that they spun different roulettes, threw in different stakes and parried their way through, driven by their own desperate intent on winning.

Jonathan Carnahan groaned softly.

He was not cut to be a detective; neither was he exactly stellar at arms administration - neither did he want to throw in his loyalties quickly to any side yet it had seemed, to his great amazement and irritation that it was automatically assumed he was now an additional resource for Medjai means. Defying them would probably earn him the most barbaric form of execution - possibly the literal roll of his own head in front of Rick O'Connell and Ardeth Bay.

Jonathan sighed cynically. His sister was the only one who mattered now - the rest could just hang themselves, but he had not banked on the possibility that she would have developed this cursed emotional attachment to the Mahadevas, and now, the even greater possibility of attaching herself to the injured Ardeth Bay. He rolled his eyes - Evy had grown into a mystifying combination of strength, impulse, giddiness and weakness, the epitome of an incomprehensible female, a deadly entrapment to easily bendable men, an intoxication to the solid suitorand most importantly, the nightmare of a concerned brother.

God, he suddenly even missed the harsh but familiar English winter and hated the Egyptian heat that he had initially welcomed with great enthusiasm.


	17. The sins of the fathers

In those days  
When civilization kicked us in the face  
When holy water slapped our cringing brows  
The vultures build in the shadow of their talons  
The bloodstained monument of tutelage  
-David Diop, Vultures

The Gypsy soothsayer muttered loudly, pottering around the brick kitchen as though greatly agitated, stirring trembling pots, cleaving several condiments; Evelyn Carnahan understood no Romanian, but the very presence of Lyanka had served to remind her with devastating clarity the early words of warning that she had casually dismissed, its initial vagueness and ambiguity dissolving into a guilt that could not be assuaged.

Lyanka had been Ardeth's - and her - only hope, whose unsurpassable, eccentric wizardries had made others fear - they feared all they did not understand anyway - but not herand for her curiosity and fearlessness in the past she had been rewarded with this woman's tacit offer of friendship, the strange, unlikely start of an unflagging alliance.

They would only be safe for a short period, Evy thought, in a starkly abhorred dwelling, in a place that people shun by giving its perimeter a wide berth. Jon was wise to have chosen such a place, she finally decided, even if it only granted temporary reprieve.

"Lyanka - are these brews ready? May I take them in now?" She asked anxiously, driven by the need to alleviate pain.

The ageless one cackled, and nodded, unable to refuse her anything, not since the time Evy pulled her off the streets when a seething, misguided horde had tried to stone her.

"Go, go," The gypsy motioned with a flabby movement.

Ardeth Bay's wounds were chillingly deep, and she had loathed touching him for the fear of causing him further pain, yet he needed to be cleaned and fed; Lyanka's mysterious medicines had nonetheless worked wonders on his back.

"Evelyn." His ragged murmur signalled that the worst of the infection had been passed; it was for her, the beginning trickles of joyous, iridescent hope that brought the mighty burst of arduous strain of the past days.

Immediately she was at his side, pressing her face closely to his, moving her palm over his forehead.

"The fever is broken," she breathed easier, relieved. "How do you feel?"

"More alive with each passing day," he acknowledged briefly, closing his eyes again. "My body heals well," he hesitated, frowning, "but I am not able to remember with ease. There are empty patches."

She snapped her head around at the opening of the door, feeling relieving drain of tension when Jonathan strode in quickly replaced by another bout of suspicion, when Rick O' Connell followed at his heels.

"Severige has naturally sent a search party for us, but I don't believe he yet knows that you are here with Ardeth," Jon drawled. "After all, you have been missing for over a week, your luggage still lying in a stuffy corner of that room," he mused. "Pity really, it was quite nicely furnished."

"Jon," she said sharply. "There is always a chance that we will now be found - we must move somewhere- anywhere! And Ardeth..." she glanced at the frail Medjai warrior, "I don't know how to move him in this condition -"

"That is why I'm here," Rick cut in coolly, looking at her appraisingly. "Evelyn Carnahan. It was a pleasure to meet you last time - I can't quite say the same now though. But right now, Ardeth is our priority. His men are awaiting him outside. They will move him, as quietly as possible."

"Where to?" She frowned.

"I think you've forfeited the right to ask such questions." He placed on her an enforced meditation on internal ugliness that was the most corrosive of traits, an unspeakable implication that she carried an abundance of that, and more.

Rick grabbed her upper arm roughly, willing her to turn, to face the disbelief and rage at her deep betrayal.

"Do you know who your father is, Evy?" His unexpected fierceness stirred a reactive rebellion in her, but she remained obstinately silent. The need to cover her ears became overwhelming - it took all the control that she possessed not to do so, unwilling to face the sins of the fathers, for the insinuated that she too, carried tainted blood through her veins was too much to admit freely.

"How could you do this! Well yes - I am referring to your betrayal that landed Ardeth in a dungeon, for God's sake, Evy," he chastised severely. "Do you really want to know who he was, Evy?" Rick repeated softly, but steadily, releasing his tight grip, mincing no words. "A man so slippery that no one trusted him! You want the truth? I'll say in a few sentences what the Wafd took a month to tell you - Rohan Carnahan - the man whom you call your father - was -"

A sudden shove against his chest by her irate brother cut him off mid-sentence.

"Don't worry, old mum," Jonathan Carnahan scowled, his eyes narrowed, suddenly standing between them. "Rick is being unreasonable. He has obviously not heard the full account of your dashing rescue and the -"

"Dashing rescue!"

"Rick." The voice from the pallet warned quietly. "Do not continue. She did not know that Yasser Mahadeva had set a rat trap."

And yet how could he not? Rick O'Connell, former legionnaire and appropriately self-proclaimed daredevil, fought now, for the Medjai and his beloved chief as if they were his own - they were his own, he forcefully corrected himself, ever since the day the Medjai warrior Taqiyyah Hasnan had bought his blood when she recognised him as an innocent, burning victim caught in the fray of the Medjai and Wafd scuffles - the same day he had sent Evelyn Carnahan off, back to England at the docks, the same day he lost and regained his soul.

That sketch of distrust, that stereotype of the barbaric, unprincipled of the Medjai had then, all but split - Evelyn Carnahan's, however, wove itself into a web of political deceit that even the most talented of individuals could not extricate themselves from.

"Is this your definition of 'protection', Ardeth?" Rick argued. "Are you going to let her believe the wrong thing -"

Ardeth held up a hand.

"I too, have known the death of a father," he reflected gravely. "It is enough bearing that burden without needing to know that the loved one had done unforgivable deeds. We must leave this as it is."

There was no dishonesty in Rick O'Connell; Evy knew without any doubts that he told merely brutal truth because of their shared history- it was his strongest, brashest trait that had landed him in jail in that fateful search for Hamunaptra those years ago. He was her greatest chance now, the only one who would willingly rupture the verbal dam if she demanded it. It was, ironically, his righteous fight for the sake of Ardeth and his unshakable loyalty to the Medjai that she observed - a far cry from the same reckless gambler who albeit threw in his dice most unwillingly with them when Imhotep was resurrected. It was from him that she needed to hear the confession of truth which would now shred the wool that had been pulled low over her eyes -

"Tell me, Rick," Evy interrupted, thwarting Ardeth Bay's efforts. "Tell me now, tell me all that no one has told me, the unbroken truth, say everything that Ardeth is unwilling to let on, even the things that my own brother have kept from me."

She had earned assessing stares from the party in the small room, knowing that the moment of reckoning had finally arrived.

"Your father was a double agent, not the martyr that the Wafd made him out to be," he announced flatly. "As an officer in the political office, he had access to British arm records, which he handed to the Wafd - because your mother was affiliated with it. He sold valuable, military information to the Wafd - information that dealt with British plans to sell the Suez Canal to the Americans, locations of British strongholds in Alexandria and Cairo. And as part of the Wafd by marriage, he also knew, from your mother, the activities of the Wafd. What better time to stick his feet in both places?"

The oppressive silence made it difficult for her to breathe - she needed to gulp air - but Rick was relentless in the pursuit of truth in the same fashion she had been before she nearly fell to the depths of treachery, running this collision course to its finish line; she instinctively knew it was to be a spectacularly ugly culmination of all that she wanted to know.

And as if fate mocked - it was hard - or rather, near impossible - to have pure truth hammered into her.

"And to the British, he sold them information about the Wafd - the number of the troops, he monitored their supply of arms, the financers behind themhave you heard enough, Evy? Do you know now how much you have done to Ardeth?" He stated bitterly, an arm flung in the direction where the Medjai lay, not seeing the unexpected lunge that shoved him backwards into the wall.

"Yes," she said in a small voice, lost in the helpless tide of heartbreak. "I believe I have."

"I think you've said more than enough, Rick," Jon snapped, pushing him harder into the wall. "Don't you see what this is doing to Evy? If you derive satisfaction from stripping dignity to all whose last names are Carnahans, I suggest you -"

"Let me finish, Jonathan! The Medjai did not toy with Rohan Carnahan - in fact, I think it was quite the other way aroundand that is not all. The Wafd didn't lie about one thing though. Your father was killed by Ishaq Bay," Rick O'Connell pushed Jonathan away, glancing at Ardeth.

The Medjai chief nodded wearily. "Let me speak, Rick. Egypt is all that you see, its monuments, its great past, and its people now. It is what makes Egypt rich. I fiercely fight for this Egypt, Evelyn. And this is where the love for your own people comes above the hate, but I will not fight, not when the hate for others come above the love for your own. In these days, the Medjai fear the dilemma that has come upon us. My father had stood strongly for the Wafd. I do not. We find ourselves now concerned with the risk of losing our standing with Muslims whose causes for confrontation are just and honourable. We risk also losing the peace we have with the tribes of the Medjai that had remained united for long. Do you not see?"

They sat in silence, moved deeply by the plainness of his rhetoric; it held no gilded edges, set apart from Severige's fiery brand of persuasion by its sheer simplicity.

"My father discovered Rohan Carnahan's activities," Ardeth continued simply. "He killed him in the rampage of 1918, just before he was about to board a ship bound for England. Your mother, died in the burning of Alexandria, four years later" he shook his head, "This is so hard for me to sayif you wish for vengeance" he paused, his voice finally breaking as he lapsed into Arabic, "I think enough has been taken - we are equalled if you wish to see it this way - my father died, along with my wife and unborn child, with your mother, on that same day."

The tale of duplicity undid her, humiliated her as strongly just as waves crashed against the tall cliffs of Dover, although she was, in hindsight, a directionless pawn in a great game whose odds she simply could not crest over without hurting and being hurt. 

There was a savage guilt that tore at her gut, its accusation stark in her mind, calling her unscrupulous for her degradation of Ardeth Bay into a being more animal than man, but in the torture that he had endured all she saw, hopefully and gratefully, was that his strength had only burned brighter, laced with a fortitude that was quite possibly deficient previously. She saw then, the self-devotion that had enticed Severige and Mejdan Bay so subtly in their cause when they gorged on the irresistibility of supremacy and power, where expediency had offered men their ambitions on a silver platter in exchange for their charity.

It was a lesson well learned, that the apathetic violence employed in the name of achieving control and power benefited no one -

The distinct ring of gunshots and a feeble scream shook her out of her self-imposed stretch of castigation.

"The Wafd attacks! They bring their leader, Yasser Mahadeva!"

The intruder burst through the door, drawing the last line of defence.

Taqiyyah Hasnan O'Connell.

"They followed you - you were not careful enough!"

"We must go now," she urged, casting calm, assessing eyes to the occupants, speaking this time in English. "Lift the pallet with me."

"Let me come with him." It was a humble request. "Just this once, until you leave for wherever you are bound for."

Taqiyyah O'Connell stared at her, trying to see with an effort, past the traitor she had prematurely branded Evelyn Carnahan to be, the murderess and the lone skewed weakness of their Chief, sternly battling the instinct to push her away.

In resignation, she nodded.

Together, they lifted him, moving swiftly through the side of the house, past the gunned body of Lyanka, the ever-increasing collateral damaged sustained by the Wafd, gently manoeuvring him into the backseat of a vehicle.

"Go, bring him to safety," Evy instructed, knowing that her presence was now unwanted, irrelevant to their plans. Whatever it was, it could not possibly include anyone who was remotely associated with the Mahadevas or the Carnahans.

"No," The other woman articulated succinctly, her luminous eyes speaking volumes. "I know he would want you to stay with him. Come back quickly."

In an instant, she turned, running back to the brick-house, dodging scattered gun-fire that echoed across the adjacent dirt paths, through the open doorway, to Ardeth's previous resting room - the house was empty- she rushed, to the three remaining occupants of the room, staring in sudden shock, at the bloodbath that had taken mere seconds to accomplish.

Rick O' Connell still held smoking gun in his hand, standing stock still over the motionless body of Severige. Evy turned away, not wanting to look into his green eyes, once full of charm and snake-like diplomacy, now lifeless.

A slurred moan drew her attention downwards.

"I'll be alright ol' mum." 

She helped her brother to sit up, careful to apply pressure on the wound on his shoulder. 

"That bastard there," he groaned and looked gratefully in the direction of Rick O' Connell, "He had foresight enough to bring the his elite team of fighters with him to visit their chief. And yea. His gun saved me - nah, merely a graze, Evy. 'Tis nothing. You know something old mum? If you want to know what I've gleaned from this," Jon gestured expansively and rolled his eyes, " is that Nationalism is infantile enough to make men fight, especially when their own interests overtake their original vision. I'll be fine, Evylook, I can even stand."

He wobbled a bit; she tried to laugh at his silly antics.

"Ardeth needs you. Go to him."

He said no more, and a silent look between them told her that things would be taken care of; they would settle down themselves in the days to come, but now she took off again, stomping up puffs of dust, casting away the sorrow songs, lithely running past the dwindling gunshots and the slowly receding nightmare of the past months, back to the one to whom she thought owed much.

It was penance that Evy sought; it seemed the easiest to seek it in presence of the Medjai chief who had suffered so because of her - if it meant a lifetime of atonement for both the atrocities of Rohan Carnahan and the lesser mistakes of hers, it was a punishment that she would willingly carry.

Evy climbed into the vehicle and Taqiyyah jerked it to life immediately; she placed his head on her lap in a tender motion knowing that he was still weak, but awake and quite lucid, begging his forgiveness with grief-stricken speechlessness, wanting to tell him that she would wash the blood that was on himthat she could see his shame and she would wash it toothat she would apply the salve of peace onto his wounds of misery and loss.

"Forgive me Ardeth, I know so little, and acted to quickly."

Short, clipped words, conveyed with the most vehement of regret she had ever known.

"I was foolish as well, Evy," he murmured, curling her hands into his own, "to withhold the information of your father from you - I thought you have not believed meI assumed that it would hurt you, that it would turn you against the Medjai...and indeed it had...you asked for my forgiveness, and now I must ask for yours. Forgive me, for esteeming you so little."

She placed her hands carefully on his shoulders marvelling at the solidarity between them, smiling at the burden that lifted, maddened by this cathartic, wormwood passion that surfaced, haunted by a sweet and impossible hope that he might have still found secret moments for thoughts of her own comfort while disregarding his own.

"You are going home, Ardeth."

He smiled then, a hallowed entity so rare from him that she felt fresh tears welling anew.

She did not seem to mind that he was filthy, sweating and ill, smelling of the pungent herbs that Lyanka had administered - and still in his worst form possible - he wiped the tears from her face hesitantly, not knowing that his own had started to roll down his cheeks.


	18. Epilogue

He was home, even though he knew it was temporary; the Medjai were constantly moving in any case, looking in wonder at the woman at his side who now took unfailing care of him. She ensured that he had no medicinal needs unmet, no awkward lack overlooked. Ardeth Bay could now walk for short periods even though certain areas of his memory still failed him; it would be a while longer before he regained his initial martial prowess, yet it would surely come, he knew.

Healing, a beautiful state that he finally entered into. Yet there was something else -

It now frustrated him, that Evy believed she needed to earn her a certain measure of forgiveness from him; it was as if she did not want to understand that he had already freely given it.

He told her guilelessly, all that he was greatly troubled by, laying on his pallet, looking in to her face as she knelt before him.

"No, it is not like this at all. Your comfort, your company, is something that I have learnt to treasure, Evelyn. I was angry at first, but now, I cannot blame anyone for all that has happened. Not you. The widest of hearts will make the best of men. You are free to go - there is nothing to repay. But if you stay, let it be because you feel you wish to."

Suddenly, acutely slain by his own passions, he drew her close, closing a hand around her neck, and placed his mouth upon hers in dazzling brevity, raining on her ivory skin in that infinitesimal moment an extravagant measure of stupefying grace and forgiveness.

That feeling that Evy thought was aflame in that now so distant time away with Severige was not desire as she had thought - perhaps a miniscule of what threatened to overflow and consume now - never had it overwhelmed in this sunburst, that rushing, noisy breath of passion that fanned out of control.

It seemed only of late that he only received from the cards that fate dealt him after paying a large price for it. And if she came with a price, he did not think that he could pay it now; the rawness of passion that emanated from him, the repressed energy that he contained inside and the unyielding power that was his masculinity would most definitely swallow her whole, and he could never fault her for that awe and distance that she might now want to place between them.

The masculinity that had a severity etched into his face compelled her to look up again, to take her fill of his visage, a pagan aquiline look of devastating virile strength and power.

Now, it mattered not to her, that Egypt still fought, and burned with each sunset; she did not care that he remembered only partially at times - it was the comfort of her presence that she wished him to perpetually have and the strange need for the well of strength that he had within him which she longed to plumb - it sustained her as no one could, now that they had reach an understanding of sorts.

The imperfections, the flaws of him - porcelain cracks on the surface that threatened to widen - she loved them all, revelling still in his lingering physical weakness, learning anew the story of forgiveness, redemption and of loss.

"I wish to stay, Ardeth."

She took the water skin to his lips, watching him with the same hunger with which he deeply drank of the life-giving liquid, dimly wondering if he had done the same for Lena Shirin, from which they took their last draught of water together. That signature scent of his, raw and sensual, emanated strongly to warm her skin, worming its way into her store of dark memories and the zygote of something mysterious and yet sinister, twisted unerringly to life.

*************************

The figures were disappearing too fast - perhaps they only waved blindly - perhaps they had lost sight of himbut he still saw themthe party that yelled their goodbyes fondly. Jonathan Carnahan craned his neck and leaned over, whipping off his hat and waving with renewed vigour in farewell, a mirror of the same impulsiveness of the sudden wind that lifted the end of men's coats and the hems of the ladies' skirts, signalling the turn into the deep Mediterranean.

Pulling irritably at the stiff cotton shirt that already clung to his back, he reminded himself that it was merely a matter of time when he stepped into the welcoming comfort of the Carnahan house, into the cooler, albeit smoggier air of London. Egypt was out of bounds, for a long time for him.

His sister would know how to take care of herself, at least he hoped to high heaven. And perhaps she would return home when she felt ready, or perhaps Ardeth Bay would see to her well-being.

There was no use thinking too ahead into the future; it was tiring and brought him nowhere. He resolved to turn his attention to the present, wanting to breathe the cool, spring air and the tangy flavour of the perpetual rainy skies, wanting to welcome its dampness and chill on his skin.

Ah...the wonders of England, its glorious, smoky pubs and perhaps the fairer sex that came with it would not be too -

And then he saw her, an astoundingly striking woman who stood with only her profile to him, drinking in her upturned face that greeted the bright sun, the opened book that was held firmly within her fingers and the muslin shawl that took flight when the wind stirred again.

She dropped her book in surprise, belatedly stretching in vain for the shawl that billowed, and disappeared into the glittering waters.

"I'm afraid I can't retrieve that but this...yes," he dropped on a knee gallantly and retrieved her book, looking up at her, raising a brow and winking. "There you go, madam. I am sorry to say that getting your shawl however, might be somewhat out of reach by this time."

English-accented, silvery-lilac tones tickled his ears as she laughed, tapping the cover of the book lightly. "A shawl can always be replaced. A book like this? Never. I daresay you've saved the more important asset."

"Indeed?" He must have sounded sceptical, for she laughed once more.

"Yes!" She exclaimed with twinkling eyes, and he was her captive.

"What book is that, if you pardon my forwardness?"

"My name is Rahiq. Rahiq Savita," she turned its cover over, and what he saw bowled him over.

" _The Exiled and Its Unrest_ , Miss Savita?" He queried, puzzled and awed by her presumed intellect.

"That's what it says, doesn't it?" She replied archly, caressing its pages gently. "But thank you, Mr -?"

"Carnahan," He interjected easily. "But people call me Jonathan and I believe you might wish to do so as well by the time we disembark."

He held out his arm and she took it without hesitation.

__

_-Fini-_


	19. Timeline and Historical references

**Sketch of Distrust**

Setting: Egypt, 1926, in the middle of the Egyptian fight for independence. The Wafd coalition is a force which fights against the British.

****************************  
Dramatis Personae:

**The Mahadeva Clan**

Rahiq Mahadeva Carnahan: Wife of Rohan Carnahan; Mother of Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan; Egyptian nationalist, niece of Sayyed Mahmud Mahadeva.

Yasser Mahadeva (or better known as Severige): Brother of Najya Savita Mahadeva, Leader of the Wafd, cousin of Rahiq Mahadeva Carnahan, cousin of Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan, many times removed.

Najya Savita Mahadeva: Sister of Severige, part of the Wafd Council, cousin of Rahiq Mahadeva Carnahan, cousin of Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan, many times removed.

Rohan Carnahan: Husband of Rahiq Mahadeva Carnahan; Father of Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan; double agent.

Evelyn Carnahan: Daughter of Rohan and Rahiq Carnahan, former librarian and governess.

Jonathan Carnahan: Son of Rohan and Rahiq Carnahan, the Flaneur in most respects.

**The Medjai**

Ishaq Bay: Deceased leader of the Medjai, Father of Ardeth Bay.

Ardeth Bay: Son of Ishaq Bay, now leader of the Medjai, husband to Lena Shirin Bay (also deceased).

Lena Shirin Bay: Wife of Ardeth Bay, deceased.

Mejdan Bay: Brother of Ardeth Bay, defector of the Medjai, to the Wafd.

Taqiyyah Hasnan O'Connell: Wife of Rick O'Connell and part of Medjai's fighting force.

Rick O'Connell: Former French Legionnaire, now husband of Taqiyyah Hasnan and part of the Medjai by marriage and Ardeth Bay's aide.

Azhar, Kahleh and Al' Fahroud: Members of the Medjai Council.

**Others**

Mrs Elby: The faithful English housekeeper of the Carnahan home.

Abdul: The curator of the Museum of Antiquities, strangely affiliated with the Medjai.

Lyanka: Old, heathen gypsy, whose roots are Romanian.

**Timeline**

WWI years: Egypt came under the British Empire when the Ottoman Sultan declared his support against the Allies. The then-Khedive of Egypt, Fouad, had his authority challenged by Egyptian nationalists who fed on resentment of foreign domination.

1916  
Rohan Carnahan gets a job offer by the foreign office in Egypt

1917  
Rahiq Mahadeva Carnahan receives letter to go to Egypt and goes with husband, who belatedly takes up this offer from the foreign office. Rohan Carnahan becomes a double agent - for the British as well as the Wafd because of his wife's strong affiliations with the Wafd.

1918  
The end of World War I.

In the Egyptian sphere, Sa'ad Zaghloul, who was a nationalist movement leader during and after the war, formally presented the British High Commission the demand for complete Egyptian autonomy but was rejected. It led to his eventual arrest, where he was deported to Malta. This sparked anti-British riots.

The Wafd would have collapsed if not for Ishaq Bay's help and interference. He pledged Medjai help and integrated his 12 tribes within, empowering the Wafd by leaps and bounds.

1919  
Rohan Carnahan's double agent status is discovered by Ishaq Bay and is killed by him. He was about to flee to England when he dies in the shootout between the nationalists and the British, leaving behind his wife and his children in England.

1922  
The British ended its protectorate and recognized Egypt's independence but maintained control over essential government institutions as well as the Suez Canal. From 1922 onwards, there would be a constant power struggle between the British, the Egyptian puppet king and the Wafd nationalist party.

The Burning of Alexandria occurs, which claim the lives of Ishaq Bay, Rahiq Mahadeva Carnahan, Lena Shirin Bay. Ardeth Bay becomes the new chief and we see the rise of Severige as the second generation of the Wafd leadership.

1923  
The Mummy! (which is the reason the whole array of fanfic is written!)

On my side of the story, the Medjai under Ardeth Bay's leadership, is still under Wafd control. Mejdan Bay, the brother of Ardeth Bay, begins to carve a name for himself in the Wafd and tries to be independent of the Medjai. Meanwhile, Ardeth withdraws the Medjai and its forces from the Wafd, depriving it of its power and military strength. But the catch is this: The Wafd and the Medjai had been together for 5 years and have forged some solid bonds. Ardeth's sudden withdrawal split the Medjai, leaving half with the Wafd and the loyal half with him. The Wafd loses considerable influence and power and thereafter, petty differences have pushed the second-generation leaders apart. Severige wants Ardeth to return the Medjai to the Wafd and will stoop to any measure to ensure it

Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan return to England after The Mummy.

1925  
Rick O' Connell marries Taqiyyah Hasnan and becomes part of the Medjai and Ardeth Bay's most trusted counterpart.

1926  
Sketch of Distrust begins when Evelyn and Jonathan Carnahan return to Egypt once more to pursue the truth about their parents.


End file.
